Retail (Your Dollar Is Your Vote)

I buy stuff from these people. I also buy stuff from the fabulous people who make music, write books, and share their creativity with the world in other ways. See below the list of stuff for the philosophy of acquiring stuff according to Pope Lizbet, if you care to.

• Hummblebee! makes rockin' handmade stuff, including some of my work skirts.
• Meretricious Creations & the awesome & gracious Valerie in particular, make the most funky stuff you can imagine. Valerie designed the TNSPEC logo as well as designing my logo for my stationary; she's also doing some charity work for Reform Through Reading right now. I am visually stupid, but I can talk design; she makes my blather awesome-looking reality.
• ModCloth : totally expensive, totally worth it.
• ReproDepotFabrics, if you're a DIY gal or guy, will take all your disposable income.
• GoodGoth : good makeup, good boots, good other stuff if you're into that, absolutely top-notch customer service.
  
• Glarkware makes with the funny.
• Diesel Sweeties has t-shirts worth checking out too.
  
• Sigh Co Graphics makes all kinds of sartorial delights for the reader, anime lover, or other genre interest haver in you. Again, excellent service; if you see a design not offered on a particular style of shirt, just drop them a line & they'll hook you up. Best Cthulhu shirts on the Internet, bar none.
• I am oddly fascinated by (and sometimes covetous of the headcoverings on) Plainly Dressed. (Their site is not currently accepting orders.) Ditto the coverings available on Hijab Girl.
  
• Anyiam's Creations has more headwrap goodness.
• I like to check out On The Hip - long shirts for tall girls.
  
• Nut & Bee makes paper fun again. More barfing unicorns plz.
• Speaking of unicorns (and ninjas), I can spend way too much time browsing at Archie McPhee.
  
• Copacetique has all manner of cute things.
  
• Joy of Socks will keep your feets happy with fab footwear, including excellent tights.
• WackyJac has great stuff, including fabulous underwear...their current clearance sale is really too good to be true.
  
• Things I've Bought That I Love is technically a blog, but often has good recommendations on all kinds of fronts. Price tag warning; Mindy Ephron works in Hollywood. We do not.
• Consistently Misplacing Time is the blog of visual artist Sara La, who was kind enough to sell me a print of one of her pieces. You want to own one too.

Here's my philosophy of acquiring stuff.

It may be unavoidable to funnel money into a Faceless Corporation. I like medicine and stuff; even if I don't like the fact that the dollar I spend on it funds Bad Things and Bad Science, I have a survival instinct that trumps philosophical concern. I take the position that I should make an attempt, at least, to spend my money with people, not corporate entities...which is why I buy the medicines from the Faceless Corporations through a locally owned, non-corporate pharmacy, which is about as rare as a unicorn wrapped in the American flag these days.

As a result, I've turned a lot of my discretionary spending out into the world of Folks I Know Who Make Stuff and Folks I Know Who Own Local Businesses, as well as Folks on the Internet Who Make Good Stuff, and have managed to parlay that into everything from work skirts that both fit and have adequate pockets (which Faceless Corporations tend to think should not be) to saving hundreds of dollars of money (that isn't mine) because I think universities need to get their balls out of the grip of artificially inflated used textbook pricing in the form of corporate sponsorship, and would rather hie myself out into the Intarweb than continue the fiction that their business model is anything other than regressive and ultimately harmful to students attempting to get an education without going broke for their trouble.

Today is the day before Baby Jesus Day, which has prompted the bit on spending, as BJD specifically resulted in a bunch of money spent this year; although some of the holiday shopping is for non BJD celebrators, the vast bulk of it was for Christmas, the whole ridiculous consumer bonanzazazazaza that it has turned into. This year, I won Christmas. I spent $40 at Faceless Corporations. I spent several times that at places as diverse as Meretricious Creations and the domestic violence art auction, as well as dropping my usual yearly chunk of Xmas change at the Local Independent Used Bookstore That Can Also Order New Stuff. Conscience-salving gift purchasing for my conservative Christian family that satisfies both my requirement that gifts be "not cheap crap that someone made for pennies on the retail dollar" and the general requirement that a giver should take the taste and preferences of the recipient into account is not easy, but it happened like a Christmas miracle this year.

I've addressed this question before, both to myself and others, but I feel the need to reiterate it. If I want a place where people of my specific interest can communicate locally, the best thing to do is to spend my money on local business willing to cater to that interest rather than seeking out the cheapest things available on the Internet. Because if you go to meetings at your local Special Interest Bookstore, and ooh and ahh over the pretty things there and take a look at some of the books only to come home and find those same books for $3 less online and the baubles on eBay for $10 less, you have just done two things. You have made it increasingly unlikely that your local SIB will continue to exist for you to have meetings in the future, and if you live in a state where education, health, welfare and everything else is primarily funded by a sales tax, you have taken a couple of bucks out of your community, too...and the next time school appropriations come up, the money won't be there. (Tennesseans, I'm looking at you.)

The Internet is an intriguing web of Stuff To Buy. And God knows, I love to buy stuff, make stuff, buy stuff with which to make stuff, and look at stuff I don't intend to buy. If you've got a Local Bookstore of ANY kind, throw them your dollar when you can; don't always go Half and Amazon first, or someday there won't be a lovely bookstore lady who knows you by name and pulls books for you out of new intakes. Magazines you love make more if you subscribe than if you buy them off the newsstand. Indie authors and indie musicians make more when you buy direct (although some indie authors prefer that you buy on Amazon so they can be rated and get bonuses from their publishers.) Support the people that do stuff you support so they can keep doing it - and do it whenever you can, not just whenever it's convenient.

There's the rant. Think on it. Pope out.