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spring cleaning, i guess
I read an article the other day that said the average American household has 300,000 items in it and now I want to get rid of everything we own. :p
I mean, this isn’t really like a sudden new urge. I’ve been suffering from the Tyranny Of Things for a while now, and I keep grimly trying to do something about it. It doesn’t seem to get anywhere. More books appear. More RANDOM PIECES OF PAPER appear. I hang on to clothes in the hope that I’ll get slim enough for them or the fear I’ll get fat enough for them. There are unnecessary numbers of shoes. On and on it goes. And today I’m trying to clean the office. It’s not going well. Like, so:
oh look at all these rogue figurines do i really need to keep all of these they mostly just collect dust
oh look at all the art supplies i can’t justify because i never do any art
oh look at all the sewing supplies i can’t justify because i never do any sewing
oh look at all the bags i can’t justify because NOBODY NEEDS THIS MANY BAGS, JFC WHY DO I HAVE 8 CAMERA BAGS
oh look at all the unnecessary copies of my own books i have, why am i keeping french copies, it’s not like i read french
oh look at all the history books i have which are never going to be useful if i don’t read them so i can write books drawing from their info
oh look at all the great bookends i have but can’t use because i have TOO MANY BOOKS and they go from shelf-end to shelf-end
oh look a rogue wig & 2 white wigs meant to be test cases for a nebari/chiana costume if i ever got less fat/sewed again do i need those NO
oh look jr high & high school yearbooks? do i need those? no. i do not. their only value is briefly entertaining children. and yet.
oh look dictionaries of angels. am i ever going to write the not-exactly-post-apocalyptic fallen angels books? probably not. so do i need the angel dictionary? no. AND YET.
The really grim thing is despite appearances I do keep trying to get rid of stuff and it JUST KEEPS ACCUMULATING. Part of that is almost certainly that, for example, I managed to clear off enough shelf space to TAKE STUFF OUT OF BOXES. And I got rid of a lot when I took it out of boxes, BUT STILL.
Anyway, I feel like I’ve gone about as far as I can today. At least in this room.
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The Tyranny of Stuff
I spent a while cleaning the en suite and bedroom today, and got a little despairing at the Tyranny of Stuff. My bureaus–and I use the word ‘my’ advisedly, because there are 8 drawers, 3 of which hold things I use and five of which hold a variety of things, some of which are mine, some of which are toiletries, and some of which I have no idea what’s in them really–have been piled-up with Stuff on top for, oh, about as long as we’ve lived in this house.
This is going to go on a while, and is almost certainly of no interest to anyone but me, so I’ll put it behind the cut.
