Indulgences

I was thinking, talking it over with Drej on our profound-dialogue-of-worldly-authors doggy walk, about indulgences. I was thinking almost everyone has some. The kind that offer a personal expansion – the kind that cost all of our free money. Regardless of how little or how much you have, now or ever, there’s something you waste it on. Something that could have been a lot better spent, I suppose, otherwise. But you treat yourself.

The most common ones I can think of are smokes, drinks, clothes, pets, travels, suchlike… It got me thinking to how acutely abstinent some of us are. I’ve never smoked, I’ve never drank, what little coffees we meet for with mates usually cost very little. I wear mostly clothes that people give me. I don’t think that save underwear and socks I’ve ever really bought myself anything and my only shoes are so worn, they are held together by inertia rather than material. It would just never occur to me to spend money on shoes. The ones I actually bought and can’t wait to put on again, so I won’t have to wear other things, are my dear flippy floppies. They kind of signal summer to a great depth.

Regarding other things… my computer is very old, I eat very little and a lot f it is given by General’s parents, who have a farm, I download my movies, we don’t really heat or cool our home. Nowadays, and it’s not just because we can’t afford anything, but also because it feels good to be able to thoroughly economize, we have costs down to such bare minimum, we exist like hermits in a cave.

Up until we hit my indulgence. I waste, or spend, or trust or however it’s better to put it, all my earnings, such as they are, into paper. (The photographic gear fits under that as well. Everything should be on paper in the end.) I draw and I write and I publish books into economy that could hardly be worse. The distribution manager explained how a few years ago the libraries would buy at least a few, if not a few dozens of books, especially novels, and I’ve experienced that, because when it came to my picture books, libraries still have up to twenty or thirty each. Following the progress of Drej’s book now, libraries – IF they take anything – take one. Out of two hundred libraries registered in this country, only two took more than one – they took three.

I picked a great fucking time to have an indulgence. But as it goes for the lot of them – they keep us sane.