It’s easy to say that time and money are different. You can’t know how much time you have, but you can know how much money you have, especially at the end of the month. (Unless you’re like me and the bills from the last week tend to sneak up on you. I freely confess this is sloppy online bookkeeping on my part. But I digress.)

It’s also possible to say, as it often is, that time is money. Most people trade their time for money in the world of work. The opposite—that money is time—is less true, however. How do you trade money for time, after all? They’re not quite interchangeable. (Or as I prefer, fungible, a great word that ought to mean able to be converted into a mushroom. Alas, it doesn’t. But I digress again.) You can’t actually buy time by trading money for it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time and money lately, and not just because it’s nearing the end of the month. Instead of thinking of spending money on time, I prefer to spend it on experiences. Oh, there are things that I like to spend money on, primarily books and jewelry, but most of the pleasure I get from spending money is from doing things.

Experiences are what I prefer to spend my money on. It could be the simple pleasures of eating out. But even then I like novelty, experiencing something new, something unfamiliar, something special.

The first time I tried sushi, it was definitely something special, handmade by my martial arts instructor’s wife and so impossible to refuse. I ate spotted dick in London, mostly so I could say, “I want a spotted dick” when I ordered it. I ate curried goat in Jamaica, which tasted like curry (duh!) and had the texture of a pot roast. (I also visited a leper colony there. No one there was still contagious. Nonetheless, I did not eat the food there. That would be too much experience for me. But I digress yet again.)

I no longer go to first-run movies, but I can’t resist classic films restored to their original form and shown on the big screen. We saw Cabaret, Blazing Saddles, and Labyrinth that way, and I just know Dan will insist on seeing It’s a Wonderful Life when December rolls around. He may start crying in the theater, though.

We used to travel quite a bit, both alone and with our mothers. Again, I preferred experiences. Dan likes buying souvenirs from each place we went. Instead, I took lots of photos to preserve the experiences for future reminiscing. I didn’t always get the shots I really wanted. For example, there was a festival in Croatia promoting the use of condoms. There were people dressed in sperm costumes dancing around the plaza, but I never managed to snap a pic. (I guess we were lucky that there were no souvenirs for Dan to buy. They would have looked strange on our mantelpiece. But I digress even more.) I also hope that when my memory gets spotty, I can conjure up the experiences with photographic evidence that they happened.

One of my favorite experiences was in London, when we went on the Jack the Ripper Walking Tour one drizzly, atmospheric evening. (We didn’t make Mom Reily accompany us on that. I did get a souvenir from it: the definitive book on Jack the Ripper, autographed by the scholar who wrote it and who led the tour. Yet another digression.)

Other experiences I’ve had include riding a mule, going on a zipline, milking a goat, churning butter, drinking grappa and cachaça (not at the same time, you understand), refraining from kissing the Blarney Stone (it was just after Covid, plus I wasn’t sure my back would hold up), studying ninjutsu, buying amethysts in Rio, touring caves, including one where you had to crawl on your belly, studying beekeeping, and some dodgy pursuits I won’t go into here.

I’d have to say it’s been a life full of experiences—and I haven’t checked out yet. There’s still so much to see and do and experience!