The time of gift-giving and all that.

Tonight I spoke with a friend with whom I have had a strained relationship for quite a while. This woman talks incessantly about herself and her life ad nauseum. Actually, I just put the phone away from my ear when she starts talking about her week at work, day-by-day, detail-by-detail; all this is about subbing in K-12 schools. SInce I work in a K-12 school, some of this is either quite boring for me or just annoying. When do I get to talk about what happens, day-to-day, detail-to-detail in my week? This person doesn't have time to listen to that. But she must be listened to. (She's mainly German-American.)

Actually, she reminds me alot of my mother--who is far from German-American. She exudes the manic, vaporous, narcissistic tendencies of the "bad" Irish-American matron. Enough about her. At least my mother didn't tell me what she wanted me to buy her for Christmas.

This friend basically told me, when I said I would be making cds for people, that she only wanted Persian, world or Middle eastern music. I was thinking, " Wow, you're limited in your experience of life. Just because you're not into 'rock'any more (even though she likes U2 (yuck--even though Bono has his moments) and Beck (she thinks he's cute, is what I see). there is music she hasn't heard before that is made by experimental, albeit western, musicians. It's cool to be into "world" music, and I really like Indian and Arabic music and know the music of some artists well, I just don't like being told what to buy for someone. This person plays the starving artist (although she is light years away from being starved) and gives people gifts from the thrift store and things she finds on the street. Just because I work really hard--full -time--and have a bit more money than she does, I don't have to buy her anything. I'll check out the Senior Center's thrift store in the neighborhood or go down to Community Thrift and buy her some cups or bowls or something. Yeah, that's it. I'll buy what I know she likes and pay less than I would for the incense!!

"Money, money, money; nickels, nickels, nickels. How I love the sound!" (Lucy lines in "A Charlie Brown Christmas.") Greed, greed go away. I just want to have time to play.