Ring in the Old

As usual, the start of the new year was accompanied by a look back, including an entertaining interview with the Bush twins in People, on Malia and Sasha Obama. But one wrap-up that utterly baffled me was the In/Out List published last week by the Washington Post. It's not only that I hadn't heard of most of the things on the "in" list, I was also clueless about most of the "out" list, proving that I'm not just out, I'm out in the standing room section of the upper bleachers. I mean "LOLcats"? "Competitive cup-stacking"? "Gourmet Toast"? "Emphasizing. Things. With. Periods."? Please. The bafflement goes on. And on.

Just when I thought I hadn't been invited to the party at all, along came the ultra-hip SundayStyles section of the New York Times, which made me feel at least somewhat vindicated. For while the Post had declared absinthe--that sickly green liquid that made everyone in Toulouse-Lautrec's day feel so sickly green--soooo last year, the Times had a front-page story on its current popularity:

There are a number of bars in New York City these days that make cocktails with absinthe, mixing it with rum or tequila or gin to, um, complement the taste. A significant portion of them are on the Lower East Side and are the kind of bars that don't have a sign or a listed phone number...

I am declaring a moratorium on in/out lists. It's not just because of my incredible investigative work revealing a Styles war. It's because I'm fatigued by the idea that everything is disposable. It's definitely a lesson that Ralph and I are trying to un-teach Sam and Julia, who, up to now, have had the same toys bought and re-bought for them. And I think we're not alone. Most people I know aren't just thinking three times before spending money, they're also thinking a time or two before throwing anything away that could possibly prove to be useful later on. This includes good ideas. And it extends to the loaf of bread on the top of the fridge, gourmet or not. (Check out the food Web site Loulies, which recently had a post on not wasting food.) 

Recycling extends to fashion, too. The same SundayStyles section, in fact, had a photo feature on pulling one's vintage designer wear out of mothballs. While I don't have a Balenciaga coat hanging in the back of my closet or anything else designer save Isaac Mizrahi for Target, I did rummage through to find a J.Crew cardigan I bought 10 years ago. (Okay, not everything weathers well.)

Along with in/out lists, I'm also putting new year's resolutions on ice. While I'm all for striving to be better, I've come to think that most resolutions aren't so new as they are another example of recycling from last year--or last decade. Lose weight. Check. Get more exercise. Check. Spend more time with the kids. Check. It's just a compilation of all the things that make us feel less than good about ourselves--or even downright guilty. 

Last night when I was flipping through the January issue of Real Simple, I came across a resolution that I could actually buy into. It's "controlling the controllables." And, while they didn't come out and say it, I will: Try not to worry--or feel guilty--about the rest.

Entering the New Age of Reason

It's not for nothing that Anne Enright won Britain's most prestigious literary prize last year for her novel The Gathering. Although it's about an Irish family and the reverberations in one sibling's life from the molestation, alcoholism, and, ultimately, suicide of one of her brothers, like all good books, its words extend far beyond their slim 5-inch by 9-inch frame. One line, though I can't find it now despite giving up a entire morning to do so, basically says that money doesn't change people; it just allows them to be who they really are. But I've been wondering in the midst of what is politely called our "economic downturn" if the opposite isn't true. Each time we have to make a decision on how to spend our limited resources, we are making a tiny declaration about what matters most to us. If you can afford to go skiing in Aspen one weekend and to St. Bart's the next, you never have to come down squarely in any camp.

There's one scene in particular that makes the point about the limitations of spending power. Veronica Hegarty, the protagonist, goes into a Dublin department store and realizes that because money is no object, every object holds the same value for her: 

"There is nothing here that I can not buy. I can buy bedlinen, or I can buy a bed. I can buy posh jeans for the girls or a Miu Miu jacket for myself if it doesn't look too boxy. I can buy the plastic Branbantia storage jars that I am now staring at on the third floor..."

Nothing means anything because the one thing she can't buy, of course, is her brother's return. 

I'm not talking in this post about people who have to make untenable choices between buying their blood-pressure pills, say, or buying breakfast. Nor does this observation include those who have lost their jobs or their savings, have nothing to tide them over, and no real prospects for recovery. And this is not a time to be smug, because it feels like that could happen to any of us at any time.

But for most of us, the daily calculus over how to spend our money--whether to get a babysitter for this Wednesday in order to attend a lecture or to save the babysitter up for a weekend night out for a dinner with close friends--is bracingly clarifying. For most of us, these either/or decisions aren't new; they've just come into sharper focus with the economic news of the past few months. The difference is that we no longer have to apologize for denying our kids a Wii or a Princess Barbie. We don't have to apologize for telling our friends that we can go out for a burger but not for a steak. It's as though we have suddenly entering a new Age of Reasonableness, personified by the calm demeanor of our president-elect. Suddenly, values are in vogue. 

Even the very rich who really are different from you and me are trying to act somewhat like the rest of us. A piece in yesterday's New York Times's "SundayStyles" talks about how even for people not particularly affected by the plummeting stock market and the shrinking job market, being in the market for anything conspicuous, be it watches, cars, or fancy vacations, is in bad taste these days. 

"It's now chic to cut back," [says Alexandra Lebenthal, president of a wealth management firm]. "If you ask people if they are going away for the holidays, they say, 'No, we're just spending a very quiet holiday with family'--instead of 'We're going to Anguilla for Thanksgiving.' "

The thing is, spending time with the people we love is what has mattered all along. Everything else is just a distraction.