idle hands...

mil and i are working our way toward academically-induced asceticism. it's amazing what a little penury will do to ya.

i’ve always had reverence for the simplicity of the quaker lifestyle and the rejection of consumerism that it entails, but i have been self-aware enough to know that i do not have the wherewithal to actually live like that . in the last few months, however, mil and i have had to cut back, not just on the frivolities (movies, dinners out, clothes), but on the essentials (cable, take out, dvds). we’re doing our best to hoard enough money to pay rent next month… what’s amazing is that even though we’ve been doing all this scrimping and saving, our apartment is still overrun with crap we don’t need and never use. i opened my medicine cabinet today and noticed that despite the fact that we’ve been eating mac n’ cheese for the last five weeks, i still have ridiculous quantities of lotions, toners, hair goops, and moisturizers overrunning my cabinet(s). hell, i could go into business! mil has a collection of simpsons dolls… i mean figures, that would put comic store man to shame, and despite his recent restraint, our dvd collection still puts most of our better-employed friends in awe. i guess after a lifetime of reflexive purchasing (of which, izzy was the largest of all), it’s hard to change one’s ways.

this is most obvious when i am here at work without much to do. i start thinking about all of the things i want… first on the list is that house i mentioned in my last post, but once i remember how impossible that is, i start thinking about puppies and searching petfinder.com. once i realize that we live in a small one bedroom apartment and that i’d have to pick-up dog poo, i start looking at the real estate section of the ny times to see what we might be able to someday afford. it continues like this for a while. occasionally, i’ll start looking at birds or kittens when the puppy thing passes. sometimes i’m off my rocker enough to start looking at cars to see how expensive they are nowadays.

are we all like this? looking for the next big purchase? the next thing that will make our normal lives a little more exciting (for about five minutes)? is it just me that thinks this is pretty sad?