HitchDied

What’s in My Bag

| 10 Comments

And now, for something completely different.

Nikki put up a post outlining the contents of her purse. Like Nikki, I “love a good ‘what’s in your bag’” post. It’s one of my favorite features in lady magazines, even though I roll my eyes at how the starlet invariably has whatever mascara she’s in the ads for on hand. It’s my understanding this is a common feature on so-called “lifestyle blogs,” where the writer will be like, “Check out how many handcrafted Etsy items I need to have on hand at all times!”

[Nikki's was not like that at all, it was very down to earth. Also, I might be completely wrong about what lifestyle blogs are actually like, because I don't really understand them other than "that thing that wedding blogs sometimes become after the wedding." At the APW meetup this weekend I said I don't have a "lifestyle blog" because I don't have a "lifestyle," and KWu was all, "I don't know... you do those makeup posts..." and I was like, "WHAT AM I BECOMING?" and then I smashed up the bathroom mirror. (Disclaimer: At some point that story stopped being true. See if you can guess where!)]

So I’m going to show you what is in my bag, but I mean, for serious now. I grabbed my purse, dumped it out, slightly rearranged the contents to fit in frame/not reveal any part of my credit card #, and now I will tell you about it.

[Sidenote: that purse is new as of last week. It is the biggest purse I have ever owned. I'm not really a purse person, three quarters of the year I try to get by with just my jacket pockets, and in the summer I generally use a tiny handbag. I got this bag so I could haul more stuff around New York, but have used it almost every time I've left the house since. It is entirely possible I am beginning my metamorphosis into one of those people who carries a Mary Poppins-style bottomless bag of tricks at all times (I'm looking at you, Labz). So this is not at all representative of what I "normally" have on me, just what I have had on me the past week or so.]

1. My “oh I just thought of something funny/brilliantly insightful that I should write about later” notebook.

2. An envelope with my name on it and a $100 bill inside of it. Why do I have that? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, JEEZ.

3. One of those “I recognize your rewards card, here’s something you’ll probably buy” checkout coupons.  FOR MONISTAT. I was mortified.  Does the checkout robot have no sense of decorum?

4. A Tide pen.

5. The cap to the Tide pen, which refuses to stay on.

6. One of those packets that comes in new things and says “DO NOT EAT” all over it. I told you this purse was new.

7. Sunglasses I am fairly certain actually belong to Annie D.

8. Camera battery charger and spare battery that I left at a bar all weekend but was thankfully able to recover.

9. Crumpled receipts! One is for Meg’s book!

10. Four dollars cash. I am astonished there was no loose change in my purse.

11. Anxiety meds

12. An old bottle of anxiety meds that I filled with an assortment of OTC drugs.

13. A small hair comb, because having a pixie cut sometimes makes you like an old man.

14. d:fi light wax, which I did not review because I just picked it up on clearance at Ulta.  Short review: Just ok for hair management, but great to keep in a purse, because it doesn’t move around in the jar and make a mess!

15. Cheap headphones, which means I stole my husband’s pair because I also have some plugged into my laptop right now.

16. Gum. That creepy gum that tastes exactly like store-bought apple pie. Also, used gum wrappers, because I am a slob.

17. A pen stolen from an Omni hotel. Do they still exist? How would I know in the Post-Oprah universe?

18. Olay Complete UV Moisture Cream, which I threw in there because I intended to go tanning the other day (right before I cancer-blast my body I like to SPF my face, because, you know, wrinkles scare me more than cancer, I guess)

19. Lip balm and more lip balm. I had really dry, cracked-up lips last week. It was gnarly.

20. Hydrocortisone cream, because that’s life with eczema! You’ll notice roughly a quarter of my bag contents are meant to deal with my dry skin.

21. Covergirl Lip Perfection Lipstick in Sultry and Rimmel Stay Glossy in Immortal Charm, two cheap-ass lip colors I love.

22. MAC Mineralize Charged Water Moisture Gel, which is pretty much the same thing as Clinique Moisture Surge but comes in a smaller container, so I doubt I’ll buy it again. Especially because I love the Clinique bonuses.

23. Like the Clinique All About Eyes cream!

24. Megan‘s business card, which I promised to give to “someone in the Wedding industry” on Saturday. Obviously, I failed.

25. A Joby Gorillapod because we’re making a funny video for my upcoming comedy show with the (not pictured for obvious reasons, but truthfully it was in my purse) point and shoot camera I’ve had for three years, because we’re low-budget hard core like that!

 

So that’s my lifestyle in a nutshell: crumpled receipts, dry skin, anxiety meds, camera crap.  I hope this has been an aspirational journey for you.

10 Comments

  1. I love these. LOVE THEM. Just may do one myself tonight.

    Two things:

    1. Hooray Gorillapod! So, so useful.

    2. When I saw that your Tide Pen cap was off I may or may not have shreiked. I CANNOT get those caps to stay on, to save my life. And now I know I’m not alone!

  2. I would like to second Sarah’s comment! I absolutely love these and plan to eventually do one. Someday. :)

  3. Welcome to the world of Mary Poppins bags. It’s actually pretty great.

    Someday I’ll do a post like this. But it might need to be a two-parter.

  4. so glad you answered the call!!

    I gotta get me some of that gum

  5. You are making me curious to know what is in EVERYBODY’S BAG RIGHT THIS SECOND.

    Also, you’re making me want to actually use the Gorillapod I have.

    • Haha, exactly! I almost forgot I had a Gorillapod until I saw this photo and was like oh yeah, I think I have one of those too…

      No picture but here’s stuff that’s in my bag right now (currently using an army green messenger bag from The Strand because I was reading some books with large covers that didn’t fit easily into my red shoulder bag):
      1. Half a Life, a memoir about a guy who killed a girl in a car accident in high school. Have you read this? Also are you on Goodreads? I love it, as I told you I’m not that hugely into Twitter or Facebook but I love Goodreads and Ravelry since I can both track my own stuff (books read and knitting projects respectively) and follow friends’ activities on those hobbies too. We should have an APW book group on Goodreads!! Then we’d be able to follow what all the smart and funny readers of APW are up to with the books they read, I bet it’d be interesting. Ok going to submit that as a suggestion to the APW team.
      2. Mechanical pencil
      3. Blue wallet
      4. Light blue handkerchief: I used to be so grossed out by the idea of handkerchiefs but I guess I’m more comfortable with being grosser now. It’s nice to have it instead of having to refill a packet of tissues or just going for whatever paper napkins might be around that would be rough.
      5. Work badge
      6. Orange-yellow flip & tumble bag. Actually I liked my old Envirosax bag way better because those double shoulder straps were more comfortable when lugging heavy weight but the f&t bag is so much quicker to pack up. And the Envirosax bag’s seams split beyond what I could repair so I guess I was carrying around too much heavy stuff in it after all. So useful to have a light reusable bag in my bag though, it makes me feel so…virtuous.
      7. A little heart-shaped coin purse that contains various frequent visitor cards and such that I don’t actually use that frequently and therefore don’t want to stuff into my wallet.
      8. Another little pouch that has:
      a. hand sanitizer
      b. nail clipper (having those bits of flaky skin around your nails while out and about drives me nuts! carrying this around has improved my general quality of life so much)
      c. earbud headphones so they only get tangled inside this pouch, not in the overall bag
      d. hair tie, even though my hair isn’t long enough to tie back at all
      e. green space pen: I love this pen
      f. two kinds of lip balm
      g. hand moisturizer (Sephora samples for the win)
      h. USB drive
      i. Glasses-wiping cloth (though normally I just use my shirt or whatever and just deal with the smudges)
      j. floss: I’m not actually a regular flosser at all but like the nail thing, I hate the sensation of food stuck in my teeth when I’m out and about

      That’s it! Not as much useless stuff as I thought there might be. Aspiration: become my mom and provide for every need while out and about, apparently. Normally in my other purse I also have a notepad that comes with its own pen (very useful) and a larger notebook just in case I have a brilliant idea that needs a bigger space but I didn’t transfer them over when I started using this bag. Sometimes I have a knitting project too but I’ve been feeling lazy about knitting lately.

      The Frankly Scarlett show sounds fun! I hope you post the video you guys are making.

      By the way, what’s the difference between “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.” and “Notify me of follow-up comments by email.” as comment subscription options?

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