I have very complicated feelings about online shopping.  I love it because it’s convenient and the thing I want is usually available and I don’t need to leave my house to get the item.  And I hate it because it feels wrong and it makes me purchase more than I probably need and I can’t touch/try on/ask questions before I purchase.

I dislike it more than I like it, and I know I’m in the minority saying that.

I feel really uncomfortable buying clothing online unless I’m buying a new copy of something I already own.  Like my jeans.  I always buy the same jeans, so when I need a new pair of jeans, I feel comfortable ordering them online.  Everything else, I’d rather go to the store and try it on or not get it at all.  Because I hate returning things and tracking the reimbursement.  So if I’m not sure that I’ll get it right the first time, I’d rather forego the new clothing altogether.

Again, I sense I’m in the minority saying that.

I don’t like to buy shoes online unless I’m buying a new pair of something I’m already wearing.  We can extend this sentiment to anything that goes on my body — from socks to coats.  All of it.  I need to hold it in the store or not get it at all.

I prefer to get books in the store because sometimes a copy has a wonky page or a crease in the cover.  And I don’t want the wonky copy.  I want the pristine copy that speaks to me from the pile, whispering, “Melissa, purchase me.”  I’m less picky about DVDs or CDs because they tend to come in wrapping and the outer case isn’t really part of the experience of interacting with the media.  And I’m okay purchasing hard-to-find toiletries, cleaning products, or food items online because purchasing them online is usually my only option if I want an obscure gel specifically made for curly hair.

Of course I love the time saved from not getting in the car and driving to a store, but I miss the people I see and the agency I feel choosing one jar of peanut butter over another.

The Atlantic recently did a piece about online shopping, pointing out the obvious:

Before the advent of the internet, we had to set aside time to go browse the aisles of a physical store, which was only open a certain number of hours a day. Now, we can shop from anywhere, anytime—while we’re at work, or exercising, or even sleeping.

Some of it didn’t reflect my experience.  I don’t have Alexa ordering underwear for me.  And I feel no impulse to shop just for the sake of shopping.  But if we’re already ordering my gel, sometimes I throw in a carton of mints no longer carried in the store just because it’s there on the same site.

Like I said, I have all the feelings when it comes to online shopping.

What are your feelings?

A friend recommended Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz.  It is so much fun, he promised.  Totally your thing.  And he’s right: I just read Magpie Murders, and it was totally my thing.

But I felt enormously guilty when I was about twenty pages in because I was looking back over my reading list for the year and realized that the vast majority of the books were by white men.  And here I was starting yet another book by a white man, and I was loving it.  It was like eating a veggie burger for every single meal: it’s a protein source, so we can’t say that it’s “bad” for you, but it’s never a sound idea to have a single item defining your diet.  Even if you love veggie burgers.  Even if veggie burgers tastes really good, and you’re now a grown-up and not having your dietary choices dictated by another human being.  (That’s, like, an analogy to being in school and being told what to read.  Or something like that.  I hate being told what to read.)

I spent the duration of reading Magpie Murders talking about this realization with friends and family, and everyone kept missing the point and making book suggestions.  It’s not that I don’t know about other books.  My TBR pile is very diverse.  Building my TBR pile isn’t the problem.  I’m talking about this because I’m bothered by this.

The problem is that I tend to read a lot of genre fiction (science fiction, mystery, horror, or fantasy) to relax, and those genres are clogged up with white men.  They write enjoyable books, and they’re prolific writers.  When they produce another novel, I’m likely to grab it and push the other options on my TBR list to the bottom of the pile.  I tend to go with an author I know I like over someone I don’t know yet.  It’s book choices without deep thinking.

Anyway, I’m chasing Magpie Murders with Jade Chang’s The Wangs vs. the World just because I felt like I should have something other than another veggie burger.  It’s totally enjoyable (I’m still in the middle of it) — a case in point; there are other delicious books out there.  But I’ll also admit that post-Magpie Murders, without thinking, my hand was about to grab a Robin Sloan book I just bought.

Then I checked.  He’s a white man.  I went back to the TBR pile and consciously brought Jade Chang to the top.

If I made a list of my favourite books of all time and looked down that list at the authors who created those books, there are a lot white men.  What do you do when you have a set of authors you love, ones where you’re willing to give every book they write at least a chance, but they’re mostly white men?

And you don’t know if you like their voice because you were taught to like their voice, or you like their voice because it honestly appeals to you and entertains you?

All I know is that when I look at my favourite authors, they tend to be British and they tend to be men and they tend to write genre fiction and they tend to be white.  Some are alive and some are dead.  But it’s like eating meal after meal after meal of veggie burgers, and knowing it isn’t healthy but loving veggie burgers at the same time.

I don’t apologize for liking Lev Grossman or Neil Gaiman or David Nicholls or Jasper Fforde or JRR Tolkien or CS Lewis or Blake Crouch or, now, Anthony Horowitz.  But I clearly need to slip other writers in between or risk having a limited point-of-view when it comes to fiction.

What does your favourite author list look like?

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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My brilliant costume idea fell through.  Last November, I decided the whole family would get animal onesies from Target this year.  Josh swung by the Target a few weeks ago and reported they were all out of animal onesies.  Yes, I’m aware that there are other places we could try to make our onesie dreams come true, but we all gave up when they weren’t at the first store.

I went on Facebook to gather Halloween costume ideas (thank you, everyone!), and an old friend reminisced about how I used to make my guinea pig amazing costumes and take him around the neighbourhood trick-or-treating.  He went as Batpig one year, though he kept trying to twist around and eat the cape.  He went as a 15th century minstrel, complete with a tiny felt lute strapped across his powder blue tunic.

Just a few years ago, I was making ornate costumes for the kids.  I took over the dining room table to make a Lady Vastra mask!  I made a sonic screwdriver out of toilet parts!  I cannot tell you how many Queen Esther costumes I made over the years.  But somewhere along the way, I got really really really tired of costume making.

What will you be for Halloween this year?  Or what costumes did you make?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

I read about the Rose-Coloured Roundup on one of my news listservs.  It’s happy news stories, I was promised, and only happy news stories.

My first reaction was sign me up.  I like happy news stories.  I’m more likely to tell Josh about something funny or heartwarming I read on the Internet.  I don’t click on click-baity news, though I certainly absorb the headlines as I scroll past.

But my second reaction was maybe not.  We need to stop thinking about news as negative or positive.  Isn’t it just… the important facts we need to know?  Shouldn’t we just stick to presenting the news and stop trying to manipulate it in one direction or the other?  I refuse to read inflammatory articles that are trying to make me feel scared, so why should I read the opposite; something trying to manipulate me into feeling good?  And… all is not right in the world.  Isn’t it a bit ostrich-like to subscribe to a roundup that is going to curate only the happy news?

But we live in a world where 11 people died in a synagogue yesterday.  Where people are sent bombs and people are shot in grocery stores.

I signed up for the roundup.

Does it make me feel good?  I don’t know.  It doesn’t erase the rest of the news.  It just brings a little breathing space in a very tumultuous world.

103 days after we got back from our last trip, I organized the photos and uploaded them to a photo printing site.  I’ll admit that I’m a bit slow on the post-trip photo-album-making front, but the pressure was on.  Oh, not because the kids were asking when I was planning on getting around to making the album but because I had a fantastic coupon.  I needed to print almost 400 pictures, and it was going to come out to close to $12 plus shipping.

It took me two hours to organize and upload and order the photos.  I went to check out… and shipping was $34.  SERIOUSLY.  The pictures were $12 but the lowest shipping option was $34.  I could bump it up to $76 and get the pictures in two days, or I could pay $34 and get them in ten.

I deleted the pictures, closed the account, muttered in frustration, and then posted to Facebook.

People suggested other photo sites, so I went with the first name I recognized.  Once again, I uploaded the photos, applied the special coupon they sent just for signing up, and went to check out.  The pictures were $17.  So more than the other site, but that’s fine.  But the shipping was $29.  If I opted to pick them up at a store, the cost of the photos rose to $46, but I had no shipping costs.  So I could pay $46 and have them sent or I could pay $46 and pick them up.  My choice.

In the end, I paid the $46 because it came out to 12 cents a print.  They arrived quickly, and they look gorgeous.  The colours are so vivid.  But I’m really cranky with the bait-and-switch of “5 cent prints!” to “Oh, did we forget to mention $30 in shipping, too?”

Clearly the answer is to do enormous orders at once so I can use a free shipping code.  But I’m feeling really done with photo services right about now.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “To Those Who Know The Heartbreak Of Pregnancy & Infant Loss–Your Story Is A Blessing” (An Unexpected Family Outing)

Okay, now my choices this week.

My Perfect Breakdown has a frank post about the financial disparity (sometimes) between birth parents and adoptive parents.  There were rules about the exchange of money during the adoption itself, but there is no formal guide for the years after as both families remain knitted together through open adoption.  Do you help with bills as you would any family member?  Is that not the case with this relative?  She writes, “What I do know is that this all comes back to the fact that open adoption has no rule-book. We have no idea what is right or what is wrong, so we are just doing what feels right to us, while trying to speculate what would also feel right to Little MPB’s birth-mother.”  They’re all good questions without simple, black-and-white answers.

Life Without Baby has a post about navigating envy when a family member is pregnant.  She talks about how your comfort level in dealing with that envy may be tied to the way they conveyed their news.  Are they sensitive to the fact that it may be difficult for you to hear their news and give you the space to ramp up to excitement?  Or do they spring it on you, demanding that you squelch your own feelings and put theirs first?  Join the conversation happening in the comment section.

Lastly, By the Brooke went to her reunion and marvels about how things changed.  She explains, “I think after Eliza died, I felt that I would always be the Worst Case and Unluckiest and Least Successful. And now that doesn’t really feel true–but it also feels like such comparisons or superlatives are pointless. I spent ALL of high school comparing myself to other people and feeling like I didn’t measure up.”  The night is wonderful, and it’s an important reminder that things change.  That how you feel in the moment is not how you’ll feel always.

The roundup to the Roundup: Photo sites are making me cranky.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 19th and October 26th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.