Mindless luxury

Here I am: half seated, half reclined--gazing past my laptop's top at my TV screen watching materialism and propaganda in 30 second clips. This is mindlessness.

This is luxury.

I pay no particular mind to the warm fleece blanket tangled around my warm fleece The North Face sweats on my queen-size jersey sheets. I admire my laptop's carrying case that I've yet to use and wonder about the many places that I will eventually transport it to--top of mind is Busboys and Poets for a hot chocolate date. I hear a chime on my iPhone and read the texts that have come through. I grab a tissue to clear my stuffed sinuses, and toss it in the fashionable silver-mesh trash can, which sits in-between my bed and my reclining chair.

I stare mindlessly again at the flat-screen TV in-front of me and see the dress that needs sewing out of my periphery.

This is the routine that will repeat itself for the next several hours of my at-home sick day. [cough, sneeze, ukh]

And during this mindless "at-home sick day," paid to stay home and tend to my ills day, I've thought of them--the people who don't even have regular access to a tissue box.

They have heart.  I pray they will soon have warmth, perhaps in the fleece form, and will be able to half-sit, half-recline in a safe, personal space--a home. I pray they will have access to what they desire, for a person with heart is efficient with his or her wants and appreciative of what they deliver. I pray they will pull a tissue at-will to clear their stuffed sinuses during their "at-home sick day," paid to stay home and tend to their ills.

I pray they will have luxury in their lives, and will have moments when, if only for a few TV soundbites and laptop keystrokes, worries melt away into mindlessness.