On Being Totally-Fucking-Grateful
February 20, 2007 by discocisco
I went to work today while much of the country kicked up its heels and celebrated the executive branch of government, but I celebrated in my own special way by trudging down to Union Square post-labor and acquiring as many new shirts as I could with my employee discount – the fancy kind I used to be afraid of (I think I might actually look like a senator in one of them).
As I walked back to the subway, I think I may have actually said a prayer of thanksgiving (or made a hippy offering to mother earth) that I could buy myself shirts, and food, and shoes, and all that stuff. Because, of course, I could remember a time when I couldn’t.
Those of you who know me well know that my casual wardrobe consists of approximately two pairs of jeans, six shirts that have the Craft Gym logo silkscreened on the front, one hoodie, and a pair of sambas. You all make fun of me because of this. Those of you who know me well also know that I will stop at nothing to get to the top of the professional heap. Which is why I go get the fancy shirts. So I thought about this dilemma. And then I thought about how I never want to become — or even sound like — an ungrateful asshole.
I started thinking about being twenty-two, sitting in United Nations Plaza having lunch on a temp job, dipping pieces of a stale, lifeless baguette into a lukewarm half-pint of milk that I had purchased with with three quarters and twenty-nine pennies. I was well into my whimpering when a dirty looking hoboess came over, sat down, and gave me the biggest smile anyone had given me in weeks. “Aw honey,” she said, “It can’t be that bad, right? Here… gimme some of that bread and tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing,” I said, humbled into silence.
So tonight I went home and started working on a song about it. Because it seemed like the kind of thing you should sing about.
Gratitude is a blooming tree that dies without water. Water your tree.
Bad Elastic
Taking calls and messages for strangers
twenty two and chasing down the month’s latest failures
swimming backstrokes and almost drowning in the world’s cheapest whiskey
ground and brewed a useless degree for people who don’t know me, temporarily.
Oh yeah. Use your headphones. And don’t judge the song too harshly. It’s still a baby.
