what is luxury?

Today I feel like this old crumbling adobe house. No matter what I did to my face, or what nice clothes I put on, or the new bag and mint green toenails, that's how I felt. We drove down to Santa Fe to Trader Joe's for a week's (or more) worth of food. In spite of the price of gas and the 84 miles one way, we still get more for our dollar at TJs than anywhere else. And it sort of feels like an adventure to fill the trunk of the Miata with provisions - against what I do not know. This is not, after all, the Taos of Mabel Dodge Luhan and the early settlers who spent whole days and an overnight getting from Santa Fe to Taos and back. Nor is it winter when, although practical experience tells us that Smith's is just a half mile away, the car has 4-wheel drive, and we really won't run out of food, genetic survival instincts still kick in.

I feel like the top has blown off the roof of my head, too. And I can just make out the sky and trees as I begin to work on a weekly schedule to insure that I can actually accomplish the plethora of commitments I seem to have made for the next few months. Perhaps signing up for a Latin class was not the brightest thing to do. Or volunteering to take on two concurrent editing jobs. Or the Yuletide Craft Fair in November which means I'll have to up my knitting production.

Across my opened book of Neruda's poems lies a skein of soft baby alpaca yarn the color of wine stains and nearby, a square of dark chocolate. I drop small strawberries into my glass and wonder if life needs to get any better than poetry, wine and chocolate. I have to eat the red-wine-soaked strawberries with a spoon.
"what does it mean to say for ever"?