I know there’s a relationship between the way I’ve spent money to try to create an image of myself that might appeal to others, and the times I’ve desired to be loved by men who were indifferent towards me. To be cured of the want for approval from those who will never give it, those who I have ambivalent feelings about. That seems to be the task I will always work at. To spot when I’m craving a status that I don’t believe in. Then there’s the Liberty smock dress. My intuition told me the dress would most probably not suit me, but I wanted to buy it anyway, to be a woman who could look dainty in a loose, old-fashioned dress. All clavicles and flatness. Buying the dress was a rejection of my body, which would not fit the image of me in the dress that I had in my head. If the best things in life are free, the best of all is romantic love. How much do I need to spend to fill the gap love’s absence has made?