Thursday, December 21, 2006

Greenwich Village, Sept. 2006


I found this unhappy Godzilla-like creature on Barrow Street near the West Side Highway. Maybe he's been displaced by gentrification.

I was feeling kind of crabby at work yesterday (probably wearing an expression a lot like Godzilla here). My boss was about to leave town for the holidays, giving me a bit more work than usual. My coworker will soon be out of the office for a couple of weeks, which will make things really intense for me. And, as I said yesterday, my own week has been busy enough - I haven't even been able to get to the gym, which is my big stress reliever. (I'm going as soon as I finish writing this!) The result: crabbiness.

Then, just as my boss was about to walk out the door with her suitcase, she handed me a little Christmas card with a nice note inside, thanking me for my work and my positive attitude (!) and reminding me that "we really do have interesting jobs." Inside the card was a Starbucks gift card in a festive little felt holder. (She knows I love my Starbucks!)

I felt immediately sorry that I'd been grumpy. I got to thinking about giving, and the nature of gifts. I always feel like I really don't "need" anything, which I suppose is technically true; no one else on my list really "needs" anything either. Sometimes I've wanted to just dispense with the gifts altogether. But they DO make a difference - if nothing else, they're a way of showing people they matter, which is something we often forget to say.

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