But I'm a simple slave of appetite
Hunger howls. Hunger's red
Hunger stays, till it's fed.
So if you take, then put back good
If you steal, be Robin Hood
If your eyes are wanting all you see
Then it think I'll name you after me
I think I'll name you
Appetite
--Prefab Sprout
If you are observant, you see that I revere my groups of the 1980s, and reference them liberally.
So, I have the week off. I originally planned on going somewhere, because the Rule is that when you return from one trip you are to plan the next. I really wanted to go to New Orleans. Too expensive. Travelling during the holidays is alway mucho dinero. The travel industry just says "ka-ching!" Everyone is seen as a big cash register. Then I pondered DC, Philly, even Richmond, VA. Civil war stuff and street cars. Then I found out that even the gays there are ultraconservative. So I sent Cyrus there with his Grandmother, Victoria, and I stayed here in New York.
This week off has been dangling in front of all of us at the Publishing Company for a year. Some people put off job searches, others planned vacations. I spent all of December working like a fool so that I would not have to be at the office at all this week.
But without certain other institutions in place in my life, my week would have only been movies and museums. I felt a great need to do something. So, I delved into my commitment to do more. Not just for "the community" but also for me.
A lot of peole are down, and they want you to stay down there with them. This cuts off any sort of potential you might have.
But the expectation of having to enjoy this massive 10 days off, the idea that I might squander this extra benefit, led to my plannning nothing. Nothing that is pure pleasure and fun. Going unplanned, pleasurewise worked. I wound up going to a Christmas party, getting my ivories tickled, engaging in a disgusting snogging session at Ty's.
But Cyrus and his puritanical ways leave me thinking, I must do more and that led to my spending a half-day at Callen-Lorde and another half-day at Out of the Closet. I got a lot done. I got two major projects off the ground at Callen-Lorde. I enjoyed my pseudo-retail time at the thrift store. I read three short stories while I was in the barn portion of the store and I was really moved by one of them. "Choice." It was in a signed copy of George Stambolian's Men on Men--th first volume. There are other signed books there, some just from the gifter to the recipient, and I wonder what brought those books to this store. Death? Break up? Just cleaning? Just moving?
So I fed that hunger to do something, and I felt better about it. Because the likelihood is that I would have done a lot of the things I like to do, but on my own. So I did more. Just helping out that extra hour at the store made up for the hours I wasted at TKTS in the rain.
I also started my article for LGNY, the one on volunteering. I got the first vital interview out of the way. I also went by the newspaper's office and got some books to review.
I guess for all my Jewish liberal bluster I have a little Puritan in me after all. I feel this great need to not take things for granted, and to not leave my hands idle. There's no genetics between us, but my Mother is and my Grandma was into perpetual motion. Constantly doing, never sitting. Me? I took to the keyboard very quickly. When you hear me type, you can be very surprised there aren't more typos. It pleases me that my affinity for computers and words is possibly benefiting someone other than my CEO alone. Having a talent and using it, controlling it, is much more satisfying than simply having it paid for by one source and keeping it invested there, in exit mode.
I realize how much is available, how lucky I am, how different my life might have been. Instead of being raised by a struggling single parent, isolated from her family, not trusting her friend, my birthfather, possibly subject to a range of poverty and class-related problem, life was different. I have two parents, imperfect but willing. I have a great brother. I had the best possible grandmother around. I had every advantage (in middle class terms and that was enough) and my health is good. The petty problem I write about here sometimes? I know they are minor by comparison. I have known great love, and great heartache, and I have been allowed to take about as much of anything I ever really wanted. I have even, sometimes knowingly, skirted danger, and come away unscathed. But all this taking leaves a certain imbalance after a while. So I find myself hungry to do more, and give, and not give to the Negative Energy Monster.
So remember, "if you take, then put back good."
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