Ever since I first heard Rufus Wainwright's "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," I've liked it, because I felt like it was my song. I mean, I like cigarettes, and I love chocolate milk. And who doesn't? Because don't most of us desire things, "a little bit sweeter/ a little bit fatter/ a little bit harmful for" us? Who doesn't crave? Who doesn't yearn?
Who doesn't want, want, want?
But lately, it's gotten worse. I've got what the Berenstain Bears aptly call "the gimmes," and I've got them bad. It's sort of hard to describe exactly where the line is drawn between the usual, normal, wanting me and the new, unimproved, decadently covetous me. It's as if I unlearned the, "You can't always get what you want," lesson that 22 years and millions of "No, Yona!"s and pop songs and innumerable trips to F.A.O. Schwartz taught me.
Because I want. And I need.
The truth is, I have everything a person actually needs, and everything a person kind of needs, and lots of what a person doesn't need at all. I have food and air and water and bedrooms and premium cable and cast iron cows and so on and so forth. And I'm lucky, in that my parents are generous and amiable and trust that I will make responsible decisions about how to spend (their money). And generally, they've been right.
Still, I'm getting worried. It's not that I've maxed out the platinum yet, but I do sort of feel like one of those monsters that just wants to blob over everything, ingesting it as I see it. For example, I want a car. A Prius. I can't drive, but who cares? I want new loafers (Prada) and new jeans. Not just a pair of new jeans, but 10 pairs. A thousand pairs. Googolplex pairs. And you see those french fries that guy over there is eating? I want to reach into his carton and grab one. I don't want to buy my own.
I want one of his. I want. I want. I want.
I WANT!
Yesterday, I found a picture of this baby elephant, Kedar, and I keep looking at his picture, because he's cute, but also because I want him. I know I can't have him. He lives at a zoo, and needs a lot of care and food, and a structure that will support his soon-to-be 10-ton frame, but that doesn't matter. I see him and I like him and I want to keep him forever.
I hate to psychoanalyze myself (but I kind of love to, at the same time), yet I think I know what's going on. As I head towards graduation and the real world and life on my own, there are so many things, both ephemeral and practical, that I really do want, and really do kind of need, and really don't want to worry about not having. There's grad school admissions and the rising cost of soda and the Prada loafers I'm going to want to adorn my children in. But those wants and worries are way too big for a weak psyche like mine to handle. So, instead, I want dresses from Anthropologie and expensive candles and an elephant calf.
Please mommy? Please? I'll walk him.
I swear.
- Yona
