If I had a million dollars, (if I had a million dollars!)
I'd buy you a house. (I would buy you a house!)
Oh, excuse me! You caught me singing in the blogger. I was just thinking about the Barenaked Ladies song, If I Had a Million Dollars. They were willing to buy a lot of things with a million dollars, but I think they were tragically overestimating how far that million would go. (Because I'll tell you right now, my love alone would cost more than a million. Have you seen the lead singer of Barenaked Ladies? No? Here's his mug shot.) I've been thinking about money a lot lately, mostly because I haven't any. No raise this year, and no freelance writing assignment either. Man. It's hard out here for a, um, well, single gal with steady employment. I have no reason to complain really, so I won't, especially since everyone I know has this same kind of cruddy feeling. "Be happy you're employed," they say. "I am, I am!" I reply, hands waving in surrender. But still. Can't help but to feel slightly crappy and fatigued with the whole recession thing. I wonder how people got through the Great Depression. Years and years of feeling like this. Must've sucked. I mean, it does suck! So... (this is a tangent that's not going anywhere, just so you know. Anyway...)
I've been thinking about playing the lottery again. I've decided that one dollar isn't enough to win, but that five dollars is too much to lose, so I've settled on three dollars. I think I can spare three dollars a week to buy lottery tickets. The way I figure it, even if I don't win, I'm still helping the state of California and the good Lord knows the state needs something. I encourage Bill Gates, Barbra Streisand and all other multi-millionaires/billionaires living in the Golden State to do the same. Play $20, maybe $50 a pop. If you win, give the proceeds to charity. Your state needs you! Of course, what I really want is to win myself. I don't even want to win big. Just big enough. In fact, big enough to invest wisely and not feel threatened, but not enough that it becomes national news and my family finds out. I would like to win, um, maybe, ten million (after taxes). Ten million would be nice. I could pay off my debt, buy my new favorite car (in red!), buy spontaneous gifts for my favorite little human beings, and go on any and all vacations as they arise. Doesn't that sound lovely?
My newest problem (isn't there always a new one?) is that I've recently realized that I have held a steady belief in magic and miracles my whole life and with all the crushingly bad news about the state of the economy, the rise of unemployment, the anti-abortion amendment in the health care reform bill, the Fort Hood murders, Glenn Beck's book jacket, -- just about everything in the news, really! -- I'm beginning to think there is no magic or miracles to be had. This knowledge is depressing me in ways that I couldn't have even expected. I seem to have lost hope for something good to happen mainly because everyone else is screaming about how bad it is and will continue to get if we don't hand power over to Sarah Palin now! OK, well, maybe that last part is a bit hysterical, but you know what I mean. My therapist, however, thinks that this death of miracles and magic might be good for me as it means that I will work from a place of reality. He seems to have forgotten that the reason I've opted for magic and miracles is because I've had just a little too much reality in my life prior to age eighteen. If I didn't believe that miracles and magic could happen, I'd probably be dead of a drug overdose by now and not living in L.A. following a fantastical dream. As if to bribe a child away from its pacifier, my therapist offered me "luck" instead of my m&ms. That's right: luck. I'd rather stick with magic and miracles.
I don't know what's going to happen, not in the world or even my own psyche. I suppose I'm just hoping for a little hope right now, no matter what form it takes. New employment. A well-paying freelance gig. Something that makes me feel like tomorrow is going to be a little easier than today. Like winning the lottery for example. Which, coincidentally, could be considered either very lucky or magical and miraculous. I'll leave it up to you to decide...after it happens.
No comments:
Post a Comment