The litany against fear from Dune, adapted to fit my situation

litany against fear

I must not online-shop.

Online shopping is the mind-killer.

Online shopping is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my compulsion to online-shop.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the compulsion to online-shop has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Short books update for February through now

 I don't feel like writing up reviews for them, but the other books I read in February include Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce (all by C.S. Lewis, of course). I have now finished my CSL class but I feel like rereading Til We Have Faces (the grad student-only read that I skipped as I enrolled in the class as an undergrad), which I only read once at least ten years ago. We'll see if I get around to it. 

I have still not finished reading bell hook's All About Love: New Visions, which I started back in early February. She writes so well, beautifully as well as straightforward, and I am interested in the topic, but I keep dragging myself through one chapter at a time and then not reading again for days if not weeks. I don't know what the issue is. I will say I tend to have this problem with nonfiction over fiction, even if the book topic interests me (remember how I started reading that nonfiction book about the linguistics of/on the Internet right before the pandemic, and never finished it?). I don't want to abandon it; maybe now that I've finished my CSL class I can finish this book. 

I dread going to my [none of your business] doctor for obvious reasons, but I also love it when I have an appointment, because just a block or so away from the building there is a quiet little street that has a cute trendy indie coffee shop where I buy an oat milk latte (mocha or chai or seasonal but always sweet) and then go across that street to an Assistance League thrift store and browse for a while. It's heaven. I bought a khaki mini-skort, two half-priced scarves, and three books, all five dollars or less. The books were 50 cents each (!); one was a Pike Place Market cookbook that I gave my sister (she used to live near Seattle and we visited there once), and the other two were for me: The Eyre Affair and The Daughters of Artemis. I had heard of the Thursday Next series (of which The Eyre Affair is the first) from back when I was reading author blogs (remember blogs?), but I never started it because it felt daunting or something. It's a bookish series that is maybe mysteries and maybe fantastical; I'm not really sure. It being bookish is enough to recommend itself to me. The other one sounds like a thriller mystery book, and judging by the title and summary, I suspect it is sapphic.

This online indie bookstore started by two of my college friends had an International Women's Day sale on their female authored books, so I bought two: Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterton, who I've read and liked before, and Bookshop Cinderella, a romance novel that is also a Cinderella retelling set in a bookstore. I find the title kind of obvious, but it worked on me, so. Tanglewreck looks like a time travel sci fi book. 

The March Disneybound challenge has been taking up all my free time, so I haven't posted anything about books since February. Also, me reading nothing but C.S. Lewis has been uninspiring for bookstagram posts, even though I love him. Ah well.

Bookworm Math

So I started a bookstagram (read: turned my regular personal IG account into a bookstragram by posting more about books and bookish things) and made a post about a meme that's been floating around Instagram. You've heard of girl math and boy math, and the concept quickly spread into concepts like reading or bookworm math. Here are my contributions.

Bookworm math:

• Buying books from independent bookstores is basically the same as donating to charity.
• i.e. noble, selfless, giving, charitable, altruistic, philanthropic, demanded by my religion, Matthew 10:8, etc.
• Paying $3 for a thrift store book is too expensive, but paying full price for a book at an independent bookstore is not.
• Let's be real here. Thrift stores get so many book donations and they will never run out of books to sell. I don't want to see a hardcover over $2 or a paperback over $1. Who do they think they are, The Strand? Also, see the previous bullet point.
  
• Buying a book from every bookstore, book selling stand/booth/stall, museum gift shop, etc., is the admission fee for visiting it.
• What do you want me to do, be rude?? break the rules?? It's mandatory!
  
• I gave away ten of my books, so now I can buy 20!
• Makes sense to me. I was so good at weeding my books that I deserve a little treat.
  
• Buying yet another bookcase when I run out of shelf space is a good investment.
• My books need a place to live! What, you want them to live on the floor like so much refuse? You know and I know that I'm going to keep buying books for the rest of my life, so it's a good investment really.
• I am justified in buying this bookish T-shirt/tote bag/pin/etc. because I'm a librarian. It's basically for work!
• Note to the IRS: I do not count my bookish purchases as work expenses

Am I right or am I right?

Expensive makeup that sucks

all hail Freckle

With high-end makeup, the packaging is almost always nicer, but the quality isn't always better. Prestige brand eyeliners are worse than drugstore brand eyeliners. I have purchased eyeliner pencils from Buxum and Urban Decay, and I hate them.

• They are too thick/wide and do not come to a point when sharpened
• they come off onto my fingers when I touch my eyes despite longevity claims
• the supposedly long-wearing eyeliners migrate to my undereyes regardless of my air conditioned climate, giving me raccoon eyes 
• despite this they are EXTREMELY difficult to remove with most makeup wipes and removers, forcing me to scrub at my delicate eye skin
• The Buxom eyeliner is a dry and thick consistency and pulls on my eyelids
• The UD pencils do glide on but irritate my eyes when I use them on the waterline. What is the purpose of a so-called 24/7 long-wearing waterproof eyeliner pencil that cannot be used on the waterline????? 

These disappointments cost $17 and $22 each, respectively. The UD pencils were in a set that was on sale, but still.

I've also used a mini size of the Marc Jacobs Highliner Gel Eye Crayon (full size $25), which was probably the worst eyeliner I've ever used. It had all of the same problems as listed above, plus it wouldn't even do a complete line on my eyelid because it was so dry and patchy. You could argue that the full size would be better quality, but mini sizes of prestige makeup items are given away as gifts with purchases in order to get you to fall in love with them and buy the full-sized product, so I don't think that argument holds up. I had the exact same issues with the terrible mini IT Cosmetics' No-Tug Waterproof Anti-Aging Gel Eyeliner ($22 full size). It definitely tugged, and that probably made my eyes age.

My Rimmel kohl/scandaleyes eyeliners, which are like $5, glide on like a dream and stay fairly well. So do Colourpop's eyeliner pencils, which are $5.50.

I've also bought a Too Faced liquid eyeliner marker, which was like $17, and it:

• was extremely watery 
• lacked almost all pigment
• dried up in the tube incredibly soon

My Physicians Formula liquid eyeliner pen, however, is like $11 and is so much better (it even has a brush tip!).

While it worked fine, I found that IT Cosmetics' "universal" brow pencil ($24 full size) was too grey and light for my dark brown eyebrows. For that, you're better off using one of Nyx or L.A. Girl or e.l.f.'s eyebrow pencils, which you can get to match your eyebrow color and only pay $3-10.

I follow beauty vloggers, and I've heard several of them rave about Ofra Cosmetics liquid lipsticks and how long-lasting they were. Ulta had a sale once, so I bought a couple.

• They did not dry down, despite being a thin formula and being given plenty of time. 
• They disappeared at the first touch of food or drink. I'm talking completely disappearing when I drank some water, no ring around the lips even. It was as if it had never been applied.
• They transferred on my fingers, cup, etc.
• They did not last, at all. 

They were $18 full price, and I bought them for $9 on sale!! I returned them. So disappointing, since the colors were gorgeous.

I was also disappointed at Stila's "stay all day" liquid lipstick ($22). I put it over lipliner and it gave me ring-around-the-lips after eating. I tried it alone and it still didn't last through food.

It was the same with Kaja's "high-pigment lip stain" ($18), which was more of a moussey liquid lipstick. I put it on and went to a potluck 15 minutes later, and it was gone. It didn't even stain my lips. It's supposed to be matte, but it wasn't really that either.

The Urban Decay Vice liquid lipstick in the shade Purgatory was patchy, drying and uncomfortable. Wet N Wild has a liquid lipstick in a similar dark metallic burgundy shade, and even if it's just as bad, it's only $5.

If it's not going to be long-lasting and will come off anyway, I recommend Colourpop's liquid lipsticks ($6 or so) or Nyx's liquid lipsticks ($5-9). Heck, Wet N Wild and e.l.f. have liquid lipsticks and they're like $5 too. There are a few drugstore brands that have actual long-wearing liquid lipsticks, such as CoverGirl and Maybelline. These come with special lip balms or clear glosses to extend the liquid lipstick's life, and are usually around $10.

Have you noticed that high-end lipsticks' bullets are shorter than drugstore lipsticks? I haven't been able to compare every single brand out there, but my Too Faced and Bésame Cosmetics lipsticks' ($17-25) bullets are shorter than my Wet N Wild and Essence lipsticks ($1-5).

Physicians Formula is a drugstore brand, but its Murumuru Butter Blushes are expensive ($13). I tried the lightest shade, which was a lovely natural soft pink in the pan, and it was so pale it wouldn't show up on me. It wasn't shimmery enough to use as a highlighter, either. What a disappointment. The shimmery pink blush I bought from e.l.f., however, is $3 and looks great. To be fair, I have also bought a pale pink shimmery blush from e.l.f. before that was too pale to be a blush and not shimmery enough to be a highlighter, but the disappointment was less because I only paid $1.

Bobbi Brown's Retouching Face Pencil ($35!!), which was clearly made to be used as a highlighter, was very dry and chunky-glittery, and didn't look good on the face. Wet N Wild and e.l.f. have some very nice and cheap highlighter sticks/crayons that glow and shimmer beautifully.

It's like some lady said on the internet, at the end of the day it all goes down the drain (as you wash your face), so you might as well save your money.

Websites I used to do a lot of shopping at until they turned out to be owned by evil entities

1. Forever 21 (sweatshop labor, Christian hypocrisy)
2. Modcloth (owned by Walmart)
3. Amazon (human rights abuses)
4. H&M (sweatshop labor)
5. Wayfair (made money by selling furniture to the concentration camps where ICE dumps the people they kidnapped)
6. In N Out (gave money to the Republican party in the California elections)
7. I still shop there occasionally but JC Penney's, Kohl's, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Macy's have all been racist to employees/customers of color at one point or another
8. I cancelled my UCLA Visa because it was facilitated by a bank that funded pipelines, and have not signed up for Ulta or Barnes & Noble credit cards for the same reason.

Please talk me out of buying these

Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons Eye Shadow Collection

$49 for 16 eyeshadow shades ($3.06 per eyeshadow)

Reasons to buy: CHOCOLATE HEARTS PRETTY EYESHADOWS UGH!!! It's actually supposed to smell like chocolate!! $3.06 per eyeshadow is a pretty good price! Also if I bought it I'd accrue more Ulta points

Reasons not to buy: I already have an expensive eyeshadow palette I rarely use, plus enough eyeshadow singles, duos, trios, and quads to outfit an army/last me my entire life. I probably already have most of these colors. Plus I'm not the hugest fan of pink


Too Faced Love Flush Blush Long Lasting 16-Hour Blush Wardrobe
honestly these names are ridiculous/ly long

$36 for 6 blush shades ($6 per blush)

Reasons to buy: HEARTS!!! Plus blush is something I use every day, or at least every single time I put on makeup, because I am deathly pale. If I'm running late in the morning I'll slap on blush and run out the door, but I often neglect my eyeshadows because creating even a basic eyeshadow look involves multiple eyeshadows, eye brushes, and time. Even though I already have several types and shades of blush, I know I'd use this one. Each of these shades is sold individually in an adorable Polly Pocket-esque heart-shaped case for $26 (!), so $6 each is a pretty good deal! Plus if I bought it I'd accrue more Ulta points

Reasons not to buy: I already have a lot of blush, and $6 per blush is kind of a lot for me. I think the most expensive blush I currently am using is about $3. I also have no counter space in my bathroom.

Further reasons not to buy: Ulta won't let coupons apply to these! >>:(((((((