Recently, a fellow blogger asked if, since my blog is called Fix and everything, I have found out how to fix manufactured items like, say, a hair dryer.  Um, no.  My blog should really be called Scrounge, or Borrow, or Do-Without, or even I-Have-Six-of-Those-Already-So-I'll-Just-Throw-it-Out.  The truth is, I haven't really fixed many things this year: some clothes, a lot of meals and baked goods -- I'm hard-pressed to think of even one thing I've fixed and continued to use.  I have some things waiting to be fixed: a stovetop coffee maker (can't find the right size grommet that will make it whole again); a pair of flip-flops that need some Crazy Glue (I think I have some of that somewhere); some holey socks (my sister told me she darns her socks, which ups the ante a little!)   Perhaps the fixing part will come in 08, as I run out of the surplus crap I've dragged around NYC for the last 10 years. 

I don't think I'll start buying again in the same way in 2008 - not-buying has become a habit, and, as is more evident every day, I don't really need anything.   It occurred to me that maybe I'll keep Fix up until the toilet paper runs out - should happen in about Feb-March, barring any major houseguests.  Still, I have this theory that buying something here and there keeps us (maybe just me) from buying a lot of little stupid things that we (I) don't really use/need.  Perhaps I'll start with the H&M gift certificates - by now I've racked up quite a shopping spree, which will be a good farewell to the store.  And I may need to get a phone soon: my mom is making our conversations shorter and shorter, owing to the hideous noise it makes (or so she says).    

Finally, I've added some new books and links.  I'll direct you specifically to Brave New Leaf, who is making a bunch of moderate lifestyle changes and sharing the results in an extremely organized, almost scientific way.  Originally I had envisioned that Fix would be more like this, with experiments and data and such, but somehow I always end up in abstract, existential territory.  Sigh.  I also envisioned doing a garbage experiment like Elizabeth Royte's in Garbage Land, a book I loved.  Even if you don't live in New York, her fast-paced, humorous, and erudite writing is worth zipping through: she covers both the details and the larger issues presented by the constant rejectamenta of the First World.