Money to Burn

I’m itching to buy something. Just got paid for some freelance work, a tidy sum for a fun project that I put a lot of time into, and now I’m looking for a tangible reward.

No, I can’t just put it in the bank. This is extra money, for extra work, and I have to use it—some of it, anyway—for something extra. Something I would never otherwise purchase.

Disposable income, they call it. For a long time, when L wasn’t working, I didn’t have any. Things were tight; whatever extra I got went into the kitty. Now, though, I can hold some back, in a separate account, to do with whatever I please.

Over the years, depending on the interest du jour, it has pleased me to reward myself with a Conga drum, an MP3 player, a camera, a sautee pan, a mountain bike, and a ukulele. Objects of good or even excellent quality, a level of quality that I would otherwise deny myself. And they have brought me much joy.

Sometimes it will be something small—a bottle of fine whiskey. And sometimes large, like a wood stove—a thing I have dreamed of for many years but would never spend the money on. What pleasure that stove has given, and not only to me, in the months since its installment!

Nor does it have to be something for me. I’ve bankrolled vacations and donations, concert tickets and clothes, splurges on L and D and others that have done my pinch-penny heart a world of good.

This time, not surprisingly, given the recent renaissance, my focus is on running gear. And that puts me in a bit of a quandary, because I have always been philosophically opposed to such accoutrements. My pure, spiritual, Zen-of-running side, in other words, is currently rolling up and down the barroom floor in a fierce and enduring clinch with my gotta-getta-Garmin side.

There’s no telling how this tussle will come out right now; there’s too much dust in the air. But the pleasure of searching and learning and dreaming is starting to give way to exhaustion.