That is what Suze Orman would say if she spent one minute with me. That woman scares me. And yet, I am kind of in love with her. Actually I am in love with those impressions Kristin Whig does of her on SNL . . ."Don't waste your money on expensive self-tanners! Take a bath in beef boullion cubes!" Sometimes I get sucked into Suze Orman's show and I want to slap her callers. Not the dumb ones who spend too much money on shit they can't afford . . . I like them. They make me feel good about myself. The rich ones who call in and give stats about how they are 26 years old with a huge salary and a ginormous savings account and stocks and bonds and retirement and then ask if they can buy some dumbass rich person thing like a $900 pair of shoes. And of course Suze approves them, because they can afford it, because they are freaking rich and everyone knows it, and why are they calling in on this show anyway — just to brag?!?!

But I digress. I think I need a Suze Orman in my life. Every year around this time, I get a compulsive urge to buy stuff. I think it's because we always got the gigantic J.C. Penney's catalog in the summer when I was growing up and I would spend a great deal of time going through it, circling things like a mad woman and drawing mustaches on the models. I would plan what I was going to wear on the first, second and third days of school. I'd record Saved by the Bell and Blossom and write down what everyone wore to see if I could copy their outfits. And then, right before school started, which was coincidentally also around my birthday, I would get stuff! Not a lot of stuff, but enough to make me feel like I had achieved a real makeover. Of course, my taste was totally whacked out (please note that Blossom was my role model). I remember taking great care to plan one of my first week outfits in third grade: It consisted of a t-shirt that said "I don't look for trouble . . . it finds me," red knee socks, and poofy corduroy knickers (inspired by newsboys, I suppose?) that I asked my mom to make specifically for the occasion. I thought I looked awesome. Later, I started cutting the tops off my sweatshirts and coupling them with shorts — over tights — and the requisite floppy hat with the flower in the middle. Then came the crazy Salvation Army get-ups that were trying too hard in the opposite way. Each new outfit made me feel like I was really projecting a new image: that people were going to think I was super edgy and cool. I think people just thought I was weird.

Thanks to my help from the Macy's personal shopper a few years ago, I have the beginnings of a fairly solid grown-up wardrobe. There are some gaping holes in it though, and I feel like now is the time to fill them. Instead of getting a new iron and a new vacuum. This year I feel extra urgency in getting new stuff because it appears I am about to get my braces off — and I can't really explain the logic here, but it's like, I really should get a new bag to show off my new teeth. Doesn't make any sense, I know. Especially since I do not care at all about bags. Or shoes. But suddenly, I kind of do. It's weird though, I still hate the experience of shopping — I just want to get stuff so I can never go shopping again. But I think Suze Orman would tell me I've got it backwards. And then she'd slap me, probably.