The very surface of shallow

After a day some of which was spent driving with my parents watching (I had said I'd drive! And it went OK, thanks to my husband's ever-patient instruction!), followed by some more driving, I'm maybe a tiny bit drained (the non-driving bit was relaxing, but the driving might have cancelled it out), my brain is such mush.

-Yesterday I was doing some [insert music here] shopping, and a woman working at ABC Carpet, a store I didn't even realize sold makeup, somehow made eye contact with me and asked if I was familiar with some brand. I said no, even though I'm thinking, I totally read about this on "Into The Gloss" and was intrigued. But I marched on.

-Katie Roiphe likes shoes, and in the SATC sense. Ack, it is possible to love shoes but not those shoes, i.e. the upscale-interpretation-of-stripper-pump variety. (These would do, although back on planet earth, I'm quite happy with these, which just arrived.) There's no picture of the shoes Roiphe lusts after, just a stock photo, suggesting Payless from the 1990s. I don't know if Roiphe was wrong to want whichever shoes if I can't see the shoes. That seems essential.

-Speaking of which, Essentials, the thing next to Sephora but more down-market and old-New-York, appears to have closed. I feel slightly responsible, as my twice-yearly conditioner purchases might have made me their main customer. I am, however, keeping a certain Japanese grocery store in business.

-Speaking of successfully-managed poufy hair, armed with the knowledge that I can tame anything with Tsubaki Oil, I went to the salon and asked for this, but with bangs as I generally want them, what with already having bangs. And got it! And no arguments re: thinning, layering - we were totally on the same page. Hairdressers of Central NJ, you have redeemed yourselves. Although to be on the safe side, I got this particular stylist's card. What I can't figure out: why a halfway decent haircut in NYC is $90-plus, but in Princeton they start at $50. With restaurants, it's very much the other way around. I am not, however, losing sleep over this.