What do I want?

As you know, I recently signed up for the 29 days of giving challenge at 29gifts.org. I filled out my profile... name, location, why did you join, what do you want... wait... what do I want!? Seemed a little odd, it's a giving challenge, what does that have to do with what I want? It made me think of all those times my mother would tell me that according to the bible you receive tenfold (or is it 100? I can't remember anymore) what you give to the church, and how often I heard people say that they tithed in hopes of receiving something in return... It seems however that the basic concept is that we actually receive when we give, that the giving, in a way, IS receiving... anyway. It's a question I've pondered for a week now. What do I want?

Money enough to pay the bills without such a struggle. Enough to get every one's glasses and have enough left over to replace my own worn out eye-shredding contacts that I've worn FAR longer than their 2 week shelf life.

A little house with a round porch and a bay window looking out onto the ocean.

My children to be happy well adjusted adults who define success in terms of personal growth and generosity...

Cheap gas, super models that aren't so damned bony, world peace...

No.

What I really want is to waste ink.

To put pen to paper and listen to the shuffle of the heel of my hand as it dances across the expanse of an empty notebook. To rip out one sheet and see the residuals of yesterday's words on tomorrow's page. Blogging seems so impermanent. Sure, if my computer crashes today, my blog will remain. But what happens if Google is the next lucky recipient of one special delivery jet airliner? We are a nation of people that have learned to accept that all things are disposable. That nothing is ever lasting - we've finally come to realize that even the planet on which we live will not be around forever. What will be left of us in 50 or 100 years when blogging fades like all fads do, when the Internet has gone the way of 8 tracks and 16mm film? When Cds and DVDs are as outdated as the floppy discs we saved school reports to in grammar school? When we die, our grandchildren will not rifle through our bedside stand and find scraps of wisdom scribbled on napkins and memo books. There will be no shoe box filled with our poetry on the top shelf of our closet, no journals filled with daily observations under our beds.

Yes, what I want to do is waste ink on crappy poetry and crappier prose. I want to scribble nonsense on napkins and leave it as my legacy. I want to record me in writing, if for no better reason than egotism. I just want to waste ink.