I have no ideas.
I used to post at that place that shall remain nameless three, sometimes four, times a day. And now? Nothin’. I got nothin’.
Perhaps it is because my brain has been rendered useless by the helpless habit I have haplessly had this week of either 1.) staying up until some ungodly hour, completely unable to sleep, or 2.) waking up at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night and when it is dark out still and when there is a cat insisting on sleeping on my pillow next to my head and I know I have hours to go to still enjoy sweet blissful sleep but alas it never comes until the sun begins to rise and I have given up, which means I get about 15 more minutes to pass out with cat fur covering my face.
(Would any of this change if I began having more godly hours?)
Or perhaps it is due to the recent discovery that apparently I have been walking around missing one earring, causing me to tilt my head slightly in the other direction (and thus for important brain matter to leak out). Serena has promised to look for said earring among her vast collection of Stuff That Appears To Have No Useful Purpose But May One Day Prove Useful In An Unexpected Way, so the earring may turn up amid the acorn caps, pennies, balls of cat fur that the cat is no longer using, and random kleenex bits and Lego pieces that adorn her room.
Or perhaps it is because I am now mentally cataloguing everything in my house, everything that I know I will be divesting myself of over the next few months, wondering a.) if I really have the guts to do this and not just cave and box it all up to look at later, and b.) how much I can get on Craigslist for that almost-full bottle of vitamins, say, or for a selection of little metal skewers that are for making beads from bakeable clay, or for my 4168 books, or for all the other hundreds thousands of items that seemed like a good idea at the time to procure but now weigh heavily upon my brain like thousands of mini anvils waiting to drop unsuspectingly upon me from the sky when I’m not looking.
I adore Craigslist but is it too much to ask for it to resolve my apparent gluttony?
Nathaniel, just last night, asked me why we don’t just sit on mats on the floor instead of furniture and use little bamboo mats instead of plates and I could give him no good reason why not. We have Too Much Stuff. And soon we will just live in a cave and use our cupped hands for plates. And then my brain will overflow with ideas to write about, because it will no longer be cluttered up with unimportant drivel and instead I will write about, um, air. And rocks. And, um, stuff.
March 21st, 2008 at 9:13 am
OK, now you made me start thinking. Damn it, Karen!
I too, find myself contemplating the divestiture of stuff, at LEAST the stuff that feels to ME like part of a failed world, or a rejected world, or……hmmm, it sounds like I just have a pile of Worlds here! That actually makes it easier - I can just divest Worlds! (smiles at self)
The only thing that bothers me (he said in a moment of gross over-simplification), is the possibility that the divestiture process itself is just a convenient filler to temporarily separate myself from the unavoidable thing that lies at the other end of the process - - - ME.
March 21st, 2008 at 9:23 am
Dammit Ron, now all my little-crappy-stuff has expanded into Whole Entire Worlds! Thousands of them! Which require even more thought! How can one throw away Worlds? They might be useful one day!
March 22nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Oh Karen, you were always the master of unimportant drivel … (just like being back at the place that shall remain nameless, no?) You are missed greatly!!!
Mike
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
“master of…” Hey! That was a compliment, right?
March 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
I, too, am in the midst of yet another “Dutch cleanser” moment… as I call it… this time trying to go “even further” in getting rid of “stuff.”
My current dilemma: books.
Do I save particular ones for my dtr for when she gets older?
If I do… where do I save them? On the bookshelf where I’ve been saving them? Or in a box? Lately it occured to me taht I could BOX them and then, one day when she is 16, UNbox them and give them to her!
Another day (from a friend): write down titles and give her LIST.
Anotehr idea: GET RID OF THEM!
I don’t know.
Journals - another problem.
Chuck them all?
Re-read and save a few?
Re-read sends me into REFLECTION CANYON! Imagine the mirrored walls where I look deeper and deeper into self which is sometimes a way not be PRESENT in the CANYON of NOW. Oh lordy… I don’t know… but htey take up a lot of SPACE.
How about towels?
I finally put old old ones into bag for vet and/or animal rescue place. That means i will have to use new ones. New ones don’t dry as well as old. They are more expensive (gifts), “slicker” finish, not old, raggy, rough, dry it off stuff. Also not stained. I’ll care more if they stained. Problem?
How about: fancy things?
yesterday i FINALLY got rid of twenty year colletion of tights and “fancy” things which i no longer really wear but now am getting closer to when my dtr might want to wear them. save them for her for vintage? chuck?
i chucked.
i did save beautiful dress that may look beautiful on her one day. wish i could still wear it!
how about ART STUFF.
could i possibly get rid of soem of that?
uh… probably not.
general rule in my life:
i will get rid of ANYTHING except art supplies which are useful, expensive and “get rid” of themselves when they are used.
at times i HAVE gotten rid of basically everything except the art supplies. and i believe my iron lasted through that one, also.
how about when life helped me downsize like when Amtrak lost all my luggage and since it was more than a visit it was really mostly all i owned at the time including a play i was working on?
yes, dumb to put play in luggage but i have many done many the dumb thing.
bethoven’s fifth: many the DUMB! :-)))
okay… we are off to pt. reyes.
continue purge when home.
last year at this time (bday) released many collected nature items back to nature. now try not to pick up so many rocks and shiny things.
old crows like their stuff. ;-)))
happy spring.
cynzim
March 24th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Aaaah, Americans, at least you have something called YARDSALE????!!!!
Over here we might sell our STUFF at a FLEAMARKET … but therefore you need to PACK it all and DRIVE it somewhere. Another job for taxdriver-mum.
I am also trying to diminish our belongings. One way is to BReAKE something. As in: uuups, it is KAPUTT. Sometimes I manage to throw it out after that.
Yesterday I heard someone say on TV that people are changing and they don’t like to own things (STUFF) anymore. Instead they like to rent. Internet-Rental. Kind of like ebay but you sent it back and pay for the amount of days you had it.
That offers a GALAXY for Rons different worlds. His worlds find a loving home, for a little bit at least. This way you are not “selling” but “sharing”. Isn’t that nice.