I think I should point out that years ago, when I used to write with lowercased enthusiasm about the deli paper used to wrap my daily bagel and the ugly coffee cups stocked by my office kitchen, I was not exaggerating. I am exactly that obsessive about the endless aesthetic minutiae involved whenever I so much as leave my house. I’m not sure whether it’s a design instinct thing or not - I lean towards probably not, just because it sounds absurd to attribute all of this stuff to a touchy inner artist or whatever. But either way, all of this is true: I still wear pretty much entirely black and grey, not out of some persistent fidelity to a high school ideal but because it’s easier to find non-ridiculous clothes that always match each other. I have resorted to reading certain sites in lynx if I dig the writing but can’t stomach the design. I pay attention to the color schemes of milk cartons and toothpaste tubes. I have deliberately chosen to buy a small cup of coffee when I wanted a medium, because the medium cups were uglier. And apparently, it’s the cup thing in particular that bothers me - all of this was prompted by contemplating the coffee cups stocked at the place around the corner. I was wondering why on earth it’s more common to have these horrible earth-toned patterns on paper goods when - I’m assuming - it would be just as easy and/or cost-effective to leave them all plain white, which in turn made me remember those old posts. Maybe I need to start bringing cups from home.