Discount-Holiday-Sale-Mas

Part of the gratification of Christmas, I feel, is packaging.  Literally, seeing things in their original packages, shiny and sealed with newness.  I saw people on the street yesterday, wearing their brand spankin' new hats, scarves, and boots.  I was, of course, jealous, but it struck me that the winter holidays play upon our fascination with the visceral feeling of pulling something open.  Not unlike the brief and beautifully horrific feeling of picking a scab or your nose. Or having bought a load of delicious groceries, and wanting to go cook everything at once, while stuffing your face with sweet potato chips.

The act of use.  Of consumption. Not even of plenty or enough.

I bought a pack of lighters at the store yesterday.  I also bought toothpaste, band-aids, rubbing alcohol, toothbrushes, tampons(in bright, eye-catching colors, natch), a pack of 24 candy canes, two thermal shirts and one t-shirt, handsoap, as well as dinner stuff for about 8 meals.  This, all of this, to me, is the same as Christmas morning.  Such is life, poor and hermit-like in New York City.

I don't feel bad.  I feel great.  A month like any other month.  And poor?  Well, poor can be perfect.  Poor  means creativity and character.  Poor means more time on your hands.  Poor means parties with friends and true time over potlucks and homemade presents.  Poor and perfect, like that beautiful farmboy.

I get it, I do.  I'd go back in time, if I could, to tell myself at 17, "As you wish."  Poor and perfect.