Even Though We Ain't Got Money

I miss the feel of getting onto an airplane early in the morning, with a long flight ahead. I've only experienced that a couple times in my life (half a dozen or so), but it's a feeling I yearn for when I'm sitting at my desk on a Wednesday morning and I realize that a mere hour has passed since I got in, and I have another 8 ahead of me before I can go home.

Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I suddenly came into a lot of money. I don't think about that often, because it's a dangerous thought, but I never come up with anything good anyway. Fly to France usually pops up at the top of the list, but then what? Laying endlessly on a beach somewhere in Europe sounds like it would get old pretty fast, or maybe I'm just used to having to be somewhere all the time.

I'm reading a book about a guy who, after some mysterious accident, gets a multimillion dollar settlement. He keeps buying these outrageous things and spending millions at a time, and it's hard for me to read because I can't help but get nervous that he's going to run out of money. It's a freaking fictional book, and I'm worried about this character's finances!!! What the hell is wrong with me?

I could somehow tie this blathering mess into a post for Blog Action Day 2008, the topic being "Poverty", but that seems cheap somehow since this post is not well thought out, nor well written. Sorry about that, my brain hasn't been very useful lately. But! I promise there is something afoot, and I should have an exciting topic to write about sometime next week. It involves me picking someone up at the airport. That's all I'm going to say.

I guess I should write something about poverty now, in my typical overly self reflective manner, no? Okay, I'll say this:
When I was about 8 or 9 my mom had to go to a local food bank to get a couple boxes of canned food because we couldn't afford groceries. When she got home (she wouldn't allow us to come with her, which I'm thankful for) with a large box of food in her arms, she broke down into a crying heap as she walked through the door. She was so defeated, so humiliated from having to take a hand-out. It was the worst I had ever seen her, and it broke my fucking heart. She was a single mother, worked a full time job, had three young children to take care of, and chose to stay in our suburban town so that we could attend a good school, which meant that she couldn't afford to buy basic things like food. I still can't look at a can of peaches without thinking about that day.