Yupping out.

We went to the gym tonight, ate sushi and wine for dinner and spent an evening ordering things from Amazon and watching Nature.

But I have a darker secret to reveal. We test drove a Mercedes last week. Somehow I find the prospect of driving one of those things profoundly embarassing. Silly. If we might someday afford it and J really likes that one, then why not? Part of me literally dreads being able to do it, because I will no longer have an excuse for J. (He'd buy me what I want anyway, but you know what I mean.)

It's not that I think I wouldn't get used to it. It's that I probably would. If we have 30,000 extra dollars floating around (the less expensive versions of this thing were 30,000 less) then I don't think we should be spending them on a label. German engineering my left butt cheek. I can't imagine a Honda/Acura/Toyota wouldn't keep up in that area.

The other day I told some one we really like a particular neighborhood in Portland and she said, Your husband's a lawyer- you can afford it!

This, besides being currently untrue, made me uneasy and proud simultaneously. His job is tedious, demands meticulous perfection & long unpredictable hours and we owe a lot of zeros in student loans, so it better pay well. But does that mean we're required to flaunt it? More to the point, will I be able to resist rampant materialism in the years to come, when we have paid away our debts and are bringing in enough money to show it off?

It's easy to be confident in the image you project when you know your means are average. I never really worried while I was in school about what my purchases said about my beliefs, because for the most part (scrumptious purebred dog excluded) I was kept reined in.

I think I had a form of superiority complex going that told me I was better for not spending on such "ugly" things. It was a point of personal pride that I could find the same style of clothes at the knock-off shops or even Goodwill. Pride, greed, averice, vice. I know what I'm capable of and like chocolate or cigarettes, it's just better I don't get started.