Now that there are only six weekends till the movers arrive to my home in Reading, I am buying all sorts of things that will come handy in Motovun: towels, outdoor lounge-chairs and parasols, kitchen knives, plug adapters, large pillows for sitting on the floor. So as to miss as little as possible, I have a shopping list on my computer. It is shrinking already, though. By the last weekend before the movers arrive, it should be empty. The ideal shopping list.

Addendum I (May 19, 2003)

I circulated this piece to friends as an electronic postcard. Simon Larter responded with two questions: “Do you ever buy anything that is not on the list?” “Never,” I wrote back before I read the second question. “And if you do,” he continued in a humorous vein, “do you ever put it on the list just before you remove from it everything you have already purchased?” “Were I to buy anything not on the list,” I wrote back cautiously, “I just might do that.” Indeed, I need a list such as the one I have now only because I loathe shopping to such an extent that I must conceptualize the whole thing before I set out to make it happen. What I may do on the spur of the moment is exactly the opposite of buying something that had caught my eye: I may throw away anything that has failed a quick test of usefulness upon catching my merciless eye. The joy!

Addendum II (June 14, 2003)

Three weekends are left till the movers arrive, but all my purchases have been made already. In fact, I just threw away the list that has shrunk to only a few items. The remaining things I am about to buy today. In the three weeks since the original piece was written, I have bought a pile of things and spent a small fortune. Well, by my standards at least. My very last shopping spree!