I have never had to worry for money. My parents have been lucratively employed as long as I've known them (though that doesn't mean my dad didn't worry all the time that, as a consultant, he wouldn't get hired for a new contract and the family would be reduced to eating cat food). We weren't fantastically rich, but we occupied that quintessential American group, the middle class. In other words, money hasn't ever really entered my mind. Between the jobs I've held since I was sixteen and my parents' generosity, cash has been available -- to a greater or lesser extent, but always present. I've always had a few bucks to buy a smoothie on a hot day.

But now, at twenty-three and halfway across the country from home, I find myself with the barest amount to cover my bills for this month, and I'm getting nervous about next month.

I had a job interview this morning, at a health club cafe, which I am waiting to hear about. I don't have a shift at my current job until Sunday. So here I am, sitting in my apartment. And now I am forced to think: What does one DO without money? I feel almost trapped in my apartment. Gas costs money. Renting movies costs money. Drinking and eating costs money. Even hanging out with friends tends to involve money in some form, if only to buy a couple of six packs and sit by the apartment pool.

Yes, we have a money addiction in this society to rival any other. Our entertainment as well as our basic needs are all fueled by those grimy green pieces of paper. Now I understand the panic and desperation that must accompany a serious lack of funds, when such a situation afflicts someone without parents on the east coast who will always, if need be, provide emergency funds until my next paycheck.

Of course, this is an enormous topic that I am only can- opening the top of (as I will do to a 50 cent jar of chickpeas later in the evening). And I have only experienced it on a likewise superficial level. Let me add, however, one remedy I've discovered for the anxiety and boredom of being broke. Boxing. While this also has a cost associated with it - the monthly fee for the gym - the owner of my particular boxing gym told me last night that I can keep using the facility through September, and pay him in October. It is a relief to think of that place up there on North Lamar open to me whenever I want. And I know even if I get this job at the health club, which comes with a free gym membership, I'll scrape up the $50 each month to go to Richard Lord's Boxing Gym. No air-conditioned sterile workout room could compare with that pungent and sweaty little warehouse space with posters on the walls advertising matches from Sugar Ray Robinson to Tyson v. Holyfield. I'd miss the company of the old hard-knuckled boxers always up there, who will take time to give me pointers. Right now I think I will get out of this apartment, burn a dollar or two worth of gas, wrap my hands up and get on the punching bags -- to zone in on them, zen-like, for three-minute round after three-minute round, over and over, until I can pick up my next paycheck.