The whole world is saying the sky is blue while trump says it’s green, the US government agrees and cheers.
Yesterday a bunch of tarrifs got introduced for countries outside of Canada and Mexico, I decided to do some shopping for things I need, namely shoes, before things get even more expensive.
I went to the mysterious land of… Matthews (which is really just a suburb of charlotte) but is filled with outlets and discount stores.
I took the bus and had to walk from the stop to the strip mall where the stores are. There arent any bus stops directly in the shopping center since theyre all off a bunch of highways. I don't mind because I like to walk and I had a bunch of Mexican true crime podcasts queud (i'm not Mexican, simply Salvadoran, at the moment though I don't know that many Salvadoran tcc podcasts) but my shoes really do fucking mind.
I know Chuck's Converse are not walking shoes but I generally hate the look of walking shoes like Hokka, I just started to accept birkenstocks but I don't think i can ever like Hokka/Skecher type shapes, if anyone knows of shoes that are good for your feet but don't look like that, or at least closer to Vans, please let me know. This is probably the last time I ever buy Chucks because I actually got holes in the back of my shoes which I've never gotten with Vans so I don't really care to ever buy them again.
I started at Nordies Rack just in case, I saw some shoes that were cute but only Nikes that I liked. I know Nikes are generally $100+ but $60 were pretty expensive for me atp. Also it doesn't seem like there were that many deals there. I've been to the Nordies Rack in southend and that seemed to have better pricepoints than this one. Then I went to Five Below just to see what they have. I almost never come to Matthews, I don't really have a reason to, so I figured since I'm already out here I should take advantage. I guess Strawberry Shortcake is next up in the nostalgic mascot cycle because I saw a lot of her stuff there. I bought a sticker book and some novelty fish pens which I will use to write the fuck out of.
Then I went to this store called popshelf which is owned by dollar general and just has a bunch of cute stuff. I got a couple of pens and some stuff for my phone. I hope to go back soon because the stuff was all below $10.
I crossed the highway to get to a shop called Ollie's, which has just like overstock from other stores like target and walmart, but is sort of dingy. I saw a lot of cool things that if I had a bigger budget I would definitely buy but the only thing I ended up getting, by complete surprise, was Lou Reed's Tai Chi book.
Next door was hobby lobby so I went just to check it out. There was also a bunch of cute stuff but I only bought beads to make phone charms. It was under $5 so it wasn't that bad even though it was something I probably don't really need.
Finally at Marshall's I found a pair of shoes. They were all black Vans old skools for $20. Thank god for Marshalls.
After buying my shoes I got a treat from a place called Andy's Custard. But first I saw a sticker that advertised vintage clothes using Hunter Thompson.
I went to a couple more stores because I had to kill time before the bus came and it was pretty hot out tht day.
I remember reading a post that said you don't need to shop, you just need to look at things go to a musuem, which I agree with but most museums are like $20 for admission while the World Market is free to go into and I got to see Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey Coffee, which I didn't even know existed. I know it's very capitalist, but I like to see new things.
Another thing I did today was I read an issue of Adbusters that I get through the NYPL and it made me feel so many things... I'll have to try to express it somehow later.
Tomorrow I'll try to stock up on coffee since that's one of the things that will for sure get more expensive-- I mean it wouldn't even be possible to grow enough coffee in the US for everyone who's coffee addicted to drink.