Rachel asks if it's wrong or ironic to purchase a $50 bath bomb & subscribe to Budget Living on the same day.

I say no.

I was thinking a similar thought today as I was driving into work (after dropping off Ella, because that's when I can think). See today I'm wearing a skirt by Target, a cashmere sweater, nylons by Victoria's Secret, a scarf by Target (new look!), and shoes by Parade of Shoes. I almost wore my tank top by Ann Taylor Loft. I was in awe that I can dress myself from so many different places. And why? Why do I say that it's ok to pay $30 for a top at the Loft and then match it with a skirt from Target? It's insane, I tell you!

Especially insane cause when I get time alone in the car lately, I've either got Air America Radio on or Alix Olson on the CD player. The way I dress lately does not exude the feminista that I am.

On the way home from DC I was reading "Red Diaper Baby", a radical mothering zine. In it was a great piece on how no matter how much someone may be agains the crap of Wal-Mart, sometimes you gotta suck it up & shop there. It helped remind me that my ability to even be on that plane going home mere hours after the march was an issue of economics. Kat was on her way home on a bus, as were at least 500,000 other people, I'm sure. Maybe in terms of money I should have done the same, but I splurged. Rachel spurled on a bath bomb.

Some have asked me if everything is a statement and I have to say yes, it is. It's not that I shouldn't ever buy something from the GAP, it's that I should be aware of my ability to and WHY I decided that the GAP had what I had to have. And that type of thinking is what makes me not shop at the GAP that often.

Guilt is a powerful thing. We have to use it wisely. We can't save the world if we're too burdened by it. Yet we also can't save the world if we chuck it out the window.