You can't always get what you want.

Even though I wasn't born into the digital age, I've embraced it pretty wholeheartedly.

If it can be done quicker and easier via the interweb, I'm all about it. "Quick, what else did that guy star in?" "What are the words to the second verse of that song?" "What the cornbread hell was that movie, Donnie Darko, about?"

I can see commando shots of Britney Spears (not that I would want to) or a video replay of John Stewart bitch-slapping Tucker Carlson on Crossfire (who wouldn't want to?). I can avoid embarrassing myself by confusing eg and ie, and remind myself for about the hundredth time of the principle of Occam's Razor (this latter is one of those things that just won't stick, no matter how many times I look it up).

So where on the internet are they hiding the REALLY important things?

• I bought these shoes at the GAP in New Mexico a few years ago. They are still my favorite warm-weather shoes; I think they make my feet look fabulous*. (There aren't that many things that make the individual parts of my body look fabulous these days.) Nobody anywhere makes anything remotely like them--even though, if they could be had, I would pay a month's salary for a pair. Perhaps you're thinking of writing to gently let me know that if I can't find them anywhere, they must be hopelessly out of style. Don't fret. I plan to get in front of the trend when they come back.
  
  
• Every third middle-aged woman I know has a cellphone ringtone of "SexyBack." So, why can't I find and download a ringtone of the Morning Edition, All Things Considered, or Fresh Air theme song? Does this mean that more women of my age are listening to Justin Timberlake than NPR?
  
  
• Gap stopped making their Grass scent in 1998 or 1999. 8-year-old bottles of this stuff can be had on ebay for about $100.00. I don't want to pay $100.00 for 8-year-old anything. Surely, somebody, somewhere makes something that smells like this stuff used to smell (like snap peas with a hint of kiwi). Maybe so, but I can't find it on the Web.

• Pea Pod Liquid Hand Soap. Same story, probably because it reminded me of the Grass cologne. Nobody has it.

• A recording of I Cover the Waterfront as performed by Rich Dworsky and Andy Stein on the April 11, 1998 episode of Prairie Home Companion. Unequivocally the most beautiful rendition of any piece of popular music I've ever heard in my life. And I got to hear it only once. How can that be right?

* You might be thinking that my feet do not look fabulous in this photograph--that they look, instead, like old lady feet. You should know that my feet were not keen on having their photo taken, as they had not had sufficient time to prepare. I've been assured that if I would like to take their picture again on a good day (perhaps after a little time at the spa), that my feet are prepared to knock everybody out with their fabulousness.