So I ended up this year more or less solvent

Until a few months ago, I was a poor sort of a chap, who went to the movies maybe once a month, because $10 could buy food, and entertainment was somewhat unaffordable.

Now I am making a bit of money, and have resorted to repeating a mantra to myself -- "abundance is mine!" OK, that's pretty pathetic, but hey, you try being poor; it will make you desperate enough to even read self-help books.

Anyway, a week ago I did something heretofore unimaginable, that is to say, impossible for me since the year 2000, which is 5 years ago -- a long time to be poor.

(What is poor? Poor is when you steal toiletpaper from restaurants your friends take you to. Poor is when you take your last $10 and buy 6 cans of tuna fish, figuring you can stay alive for 6 days without starving.)

What was the unimaginable?

I dropped $70-00 at Barnes & Noble, the premier books chain in the US, on three lovely books:

1) "The Poetry of Pablo Neruda," edited by Ilan Stavans, translated by 36 translators, most of them well-known poets themselves;
2) "100 Great Poems of the 20th Century," edited by Mark Strand;
3) "The Times Complete History of the World," a massive, glossy coffee-table book full of pictures and maps and charts, which I couldn't resist, because Barnes & Noble was selling it for $19.95 -- the book must have cost twice that just to produce.

I walked home feeling a bit shocked at my purchase, but extremely happy at carrying the weight of my booty. The poetry books now lie by my bedside, and I dip into them before I go to sleep.

"Into the night of the heart
your name drops slowly
and moves in silence and falls
and breaks and spreads its water."

The coffee-table monster lies on my coffee table, and I page through it during the day when I break away from my computer, reading about ancient China under "The First Civilizations" and about "The Age of European Dominance" and "The Rise of the Frankish Kingdom," and I feel I'm sitting here in NYC and giving myself a world perspective.

Damn, it's nice to have a little extra discretionary income to splurge on the pleasures of the mind. I wouldn't care if I were a peasant in Africa, but I'm not -- I'm an urbanite in NYC, and I need to spoil my flashing and eager-for-new-words-and-knowledge cortex every once in a while, especially when I watch my city launch itself into a gift-buying frenzy.

Listen, a very merry Christmas season to you all; happy Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and whatever; and may the New Year bring you great and appreciated slices of ... ABUNDANCE ... !