coveting coveting

okay. so today is "Oprah's Favorite Things" show. in between patients, phone calls, and never-ending nurse questions (why are the nurses asking me questions? i can't really help them . . . they're the ones with years of school and salaries four times mine) i've been catching pieces of the show. and let me tell you, i'm feeling pretty materialistic right now.

things she's given away so far: $800 digital camera/camcorder, $200 watches, a book, soaps, $400 standing mixer, williams-sonoma mixing bowls, a Sonicare skin cleansing system, Ugg boots, a month's supply of cupcakes made by the man who baked Oprah's 400-pound-50th-birthday cake, a DVD case with 80 movies in it, $250 Target gift cards, and get this --- a LG refrigerator complete with high-definition television screen on the front, DVD hookup, and capability to show your favorite digital pictures.

people are jumping up and down, sobbing, screaming, clawing at their friends, and going crazy. i can't say i wouldn't be doing the same thing if i happened to be lucky enough to attend the Oprah show taping that day (i don't think they actually know they're on the "Favorite Things" episode when they come). but mostly it's making me feel very poor, very shabby, and very non-have-y. and it makes me feel like i wish i was at the Oprah show to have received all of these amazing, somewhat nonsensical, not really needed, but very luxurious gifts.

it's disheartening to wonder how i'm going to afford to buy Christmas gifts for the people i love this year; it's been a strained time in my life financially. i think about money constantly; not about how i can make more, but about how little i have. i'm always thinking about whether i have enough to get gas, buy groceries, go out to eat, etc. it's getting old . . . but what can i do? there are people who don't even think about money at all, because they don't have any. less than i do. by most standards i live comfortably. i feel fed up and ashamed all at once for being so selfish and so consumed with things that aren't that important. but when it comes down to whether i can pay my bills, that seems pretty important in my small world . . .

now josh groban is frickin' performing. i hate you, oprah.