2. I keep getting these reminders to ask for what I want, so I have been doing some asking lately, lots actually, about money, career, and all sorts of other stuff. Even Rumi says so:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

When I was looking for work after we moved back to Maryland in 2005, I remember my criteria: doesn’t compromise my ethics, and doesn’t require pantyhose. Behold, two years at Pangea, a vegan store where the dress code was, “Don’t wear a t-shirt that says ‘fuck you’ or anything if you’re out dealing with customers.” That was what Phil and Shari told me during my interview. They also asked me why I wanted to work there, but not in the normal job interview way. It was more, “What the hell is wrong with you that you want to work here?” Sigh. The universe really outdid itself on that one. If it weren’t so damn far away, I would still be working there, listening to Christmastime in Hell.

This time: lucrative, fulfilling, allows me to keep up with my other interests, and permits me to dress like a freak if I so choose.

3. Oh my god, Christmas. I am over it. As a kid I thought it would be neat to celebrate Christmas because it was such a big deal, and the presents were so much better. My friends would take home these big hauls of clothes and goodies and electronics, all the while envying my eight nights of presents, as if it were eight nights the scale of Christmas. The reality was that for me and most of my ilk, there was a big gift on the first night (like a sweater) and then seven nights of key chains and gelt. Then, on Christmas, when all my friends were getting new wardrobes and boom boxes, I was sitting around in sweatpants eating chinese food and watching rented movies with my parents.

I’ve been through at least a solid ten or eleven years of Christmas now, and with each year I miss Jewish Christmas more and more. Christmas feels weird to me. It is not my holiday, it doesn’t have any significance for me, and lately it seems like a big, expensive, consumerist pain in the butt. Depressing, too, this year, with everything going on in Scott’s family. We will be spending part of Christmas day visiting Scott’s father in the nursing home, which is depressing for us, but geometrically, exponentially, infinitely more depressing for Scott’s father, who is sixty-seven and can’t ever go home again. Actually, it is not depressing. It is horrifying.

So, I keep doing this, because it is important to Scott’s family, and I am a good person, and it is the right thing to do, and I am a supportive partner, and it is just one day out of the year for crying out loud, and I couldn’t live with myself otherwise, and it is my choice, and once everyone gets together we DO have a good time. And, I get sweaters. Still, part of me really wants to be at home celebrating my way, eating lo mein and watching one Woody Allen movie after another. (I would pick: Love and Death, Sleeper, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, Deconstructing Harry, and Annie Hall.)

Also, I may have just spent an hour and a half watching clips of Woody Allen movies.

*One of those cybex things. Five years of consistent gym going and I had no idea what those were called until I looked it up just a moment ago.

In other words, it’s impossible to be perfectly anything, and you do the best you can with the information and resources you have. But, knowing that perfection is impossible isn’t an excuse to be reckless or lazy.

Which brings me to the fact that we’re kind of broke. The past eighteen months, and especially the past year have been financially ridiculous. The plumbing debacle was what finally put me over the edge and put us back in super crazy cheap mode until we can start wrastlin’ some more income. As in, other than food*, if it doesn’t come from the dollar store, we can’t afford it. I’ve been diligent over the years about buying only home and body products that are not tested on animals, and always buying the vegan versions if available. But, there comes a point when a sixteen dollar bottle of conditioner, heck even a six dollar bottle of conditioner, just isn’t in the budget. I am fortunate that there are some good ethics hacks out there: the dishwasher soap, dish soap, and razors at the dollar store are produced by companies manufacture in the USA and do not do animal testing, and Breck conditioner – another dollar store item -claims not to be tested on animals, although the parent company may test.

Usually, the parent company testing would take something off my list, but these are different times, and I’ve had to bend some of my ethics. The item that is really getting me is lotion. Aside from the ethics of the companies that make inexpensive lotions, there are the ingredients themselves. When I see a long list of chemicals I can’t pronounce, the thought of absorbing that stuff into my skin gives me the willies. But at the same time, I’m itchy.

The point in all of this is that I don’t really have any answers, and this is another opportunity to explore my ethical constitution, at least with regard to what I support with my money. Certainly, it would be more pleasant to have the means to always buy the organic vegan version of everything, but I’ve learned over the years that getting too comfortable in any set of values, even good ones, can lead to rigidity and narrow-mindedness. So, while I’m not about to go out and buy bacon shampoo, being forced to bend has its gifts.

*I am compelled to add, for anyone wondering, that if one stays away from processed foods and fake meat, vegetarian / vegan eating is dirt cheap, if you’ll pardon the pun. Between the two of us, there are five organic, veggie meals a day in our house for $60 a week.