Dubonnet or Vintage Red?

Have you ever experienced a Christmas morning like this? How about simply a morning like this. Nothing is going your way: your oatmeal runs over the side of the bowl in the microwave leaving a huge puddle of goop which will be the consistency of concrete when you get home tonight, you can't find your other glove, and when you get to the train station you realized your Metrocard has expired and you are forced to stand in a line twelve people deep. Now you will be late for work. My morning did not unfold into such a traumatic episode today, however I am feeling a little spoiled. (Kind of like Jonathan, here, about six years ago.)

This is my brother when he was about six or seven and he will be thirteen in April 2010. I don't even recall the reason he got so upset, after all this was the Christmas he got his bike, but I do remember wondering why he was so upset- he had everything. Being the only kid in the house, Christmas was about him. My sisters and I were out of the house, in college, in grad-school, getting proposed to and trying to make car payments. He had four "mothers" to spoil him and he was still somehow ultimately disappointed.

I don't have deep troubles or stresses and yet, I still somehow manage to wake-up with the same headache I went to bed with. I think a chiropractor could solve this problem with a quick alignment, but finding a new chiropractor in NYC sort of weirds me out. Not that there aren't good ones, but I know there are tons of bad ones. I don't take risks when it comes to my musculoskeletal system. Gynecologist, Opthamologist, Dermatologist- I have a whatever attitude. I've given more thought and research (via asking girlfriends, Internet searches & of course investigating the wonder that is YELP) to who cuts my hair than who does my pap smear. Seriously.

Anyway- I don't have a hard life. The hardest decision I made this morning was choosing between oat bran for breakfast or hot Grape Nuts. (I love hot Grape Nuts- they smell like my childhood and taste oh, so, so good!) Deciding to wear MAC's Dubonnet Red lipstick, or Clinique's Vintage Red? I realize that these lip colours are over $20 a piece, but as I thought of this staring in the mirror at my soft pale lips I remembered that both of these were given to me. One by a friend who got didn't like the bold Vintage Red included in her free gift during Clinique bonus time, and the other by a friend who has a fabulous job as Asst. Beauty Editor at First for Women. She gives me marvelous tid-bits: eye color, lip gloss, nail polish- colors that just aren't her.

I have wonderful friends, a great relationship with my family, and a husband who I've loved for almost half my life. (It's all about relationships & people...) Once, after reading a short essay I wrote about Chris, one of the comments I received was, "Stefani, I want to marry your husband." Sorry girls, he's mine. I realize the enormity of all that I have been blessed with. To walk down the sidewalk in New York City, leaves crunching underfoot, to smell pine in the air, candle wax, and exhaust.

I will have a new apartment this weekend. A beautiful space that "we will live in until we die," which I told Chris this morning. With my next paycheck I want to buy a $25 tree from the guy selling trees outside the park entrance on Second Ave and 91st Street. I sort of feel bad for deciding what to buy myself this time of year- with money that's not even in my account yet. I have everything and sometimes still, I'm disappointed. I get the most joy, the most pleasure from giving. Giving it all away: time, money, cups of coffee, dinner, trinkets- dresses I only wore once and purses that just aren't me anymore. I don't feel like I have much. I was raised simply, I am frugal, I do bring my own tuna (in an washed out sour cream container) and bag of Dole Romain lettuce to work to eat for lunch. But, I am so, so blessed.