Winter always makes me hungry. I've always assumed that that's because the cold makes me use up extra calories to keep warm. Or maybe it's just that it made my ancestors use up extra calories, even though I get to live with central heating now, and so my brain is wired for greed in cold temperatures. Either way, it makes me hungry. I want bacon, and crispy chicken skin, and things covered in mayonnaise, and crusty greasy potatoes. And cupcakes with squishy fluffy chocolate icing. Oh, and cream sauce. I want cream sauce so badly that I edited this post to add it.
But this year, I also want stuff. I want to buy a dozen pairs of those nice men's style cotton pajamas that I bought on sale a few weeks ago. I want a Great Gatsby sized collection of cotton shirts. I want to buy every Bois 1920 and Parfumerie Generale fragrance I don't already own. I want neat little flat-heeled dress shoes in every color. I want books. I want flowerpots. I want china and a china cabinet. I want six dozen Irish linen handkerchiefs. I want want want stuff stuff stuff.
Don't worry; I'm not buying this stuff. A bankruptcy lawyer is one of the things that I don't want. I'm throttling the urge to controlled levels; I bought a fuzzy winter hat and some wool socks. I'm feeling appropriately grateful that, in this economy, I can afford those. But where is this greed coming from? I'm feeling like a weird variant on Oscar -- ChickenFreak, The Hoarding Muppet.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
The 'greed' is coming from a number of sources (all of which you already know, smart one) - it's coming on winter: the Ant in you is coming out. We are, as a nation and a world, seemingly coming apart at the seams. In uncertain times, especially in colder weather (just because you have access to central heating doesn't mean you will always 'have' it - and your atavistic brain knows this)...we tend to want to hoard and hibernate.
ReplyDeleteBuying things also helps to fool us into thinking we can stave off Death and its modern counterpart A Reversal of Fortune. The media would have us thinking we're all circling the drain - and there's so MUCH media these days. Don't worry. Go make a cream sauce, then take a walk to walk off the cream sauce. Buy a couple of pairs of socks in different colors (less expensive than the shoes) and a couple of nail polishes (or the equiv). Take a hot shower.
Read a good, FUN book! This anxiety will pass (I've got it, too, so I know of what I write here)
xoxoxo
Musette! Howdy! Thank you; that all makes perfect sense. And various nervous-making work-related things happen toward the end of the year, too.
ReplyDeleteI bought the gaudy socks. :) Wool, with bright blue and yellow flowers. Three pairs of identical socks, because that's the minimum required for me to have any assurance of being able to put a pair together. (And did I buy another two pairs of another pattern? Yes, I think I did.) And simmered myself in a rose-oil-and-bubble-bath scented bath.
I need the fun book; the one I'm reading right now is Merely Adequate.
Oddly, in spite of wanting to acquire, I also want to divest; I suspect I'll spend much of the weekend decluttering.