Last year before heading to Seattle, I did what I thought was a bang-up cleaning job on my room. I figured that I should at least make it useable for any potential house guests my mom might have. For the time, it was a vast improvement. But my room has returned to its former state of chaos. It's cleaning time again, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to be a little more brutal about what I keep and what I throw out this time around.
I had managed to organize my closet fairly well, removing all the old pre-high school clutter. But I replaced it with mildly more sophisticated clutter, some of it still from high school, some of it from college and some from grad school. Well, it needs additional de-cluttering. And last year's cleaning needs to be taken from its newer attic home to Bethesda (like Good Will) or the junkyard.
It's amazing how many identical clothing items you can accumlate. I found three pairs of fairly nice blue pants on hangers in the closet, all of them in my current size, I think. I wear blue pants how often? Maybe once every two or three weeks when I'm working--once a week to be generous. I found an old pair of jeans that I "replaced" back in January and several pairs of khaki pants, some of which were worn out, others of which are completely fine. Good thing I didn't buy a new pair last weekend.
The problem is that it's difficult to throw things out (or give them to a local charity), even if you know you won't be using them. I mean, what if I end up needing more than one of those pairs of blue pants? Or if I get fat again and need the old size 38's instead of my present 34's? And all those toys I took to the attic last Spring, you know, maybe if I have kids someday they'll want to play with them, right? And the old VHS tapes that I haven't watched in years, those are part of my personal history, my development as an individual and an artist. Sure, I'm planning on replacing the ones that I actually still like with DVDs once I get a regular income, but what about right now? What if I really need to watch the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie but I don't have it handy? And lets not even get started on the old Nintendo and Super NES with all their sacred gaming titles.
So rather than cleaning out these things, acting on what I know needs to be done, I sit in front of my mom's computer, publically insulting myself, jeering at my own foolishness until I either become tired of it and find a different way to waste my time or until I actually do something about it.
. . .
I guess it's time to do something about it.
Posted by at June 22, 2004 1:50 PMMultiple pairs of identical clothing reminds me of Satie and his grey suit(s).
Possibly you should try selling all your worldly posesions on the internet as someone recently did. Or, you could have it all destryed as an art project like a recent UK artist. (he was criticized for destroying works of art that other artists had given him earlier in his life. he ended last by destroying the cloths he was wearing. Then he had to go out and apply for credit cards (with no identification) so that he could buy clothing.)
Posted by: jwaggone at June 22, 2004 2:30 PMoh, but don't toss the toys.
labor-blue scuffy pants, yes.
but not the toys.
even now i wish i had my childhood toys -- nevermind the kids -- i want them myself. think about it. we could have so much fun trying to explain atari and spirographs and lite-brite and ant farms and sea monkeys and boomerangs and big wheels to kids who think neo-pets and power rangers and powder puff girls are the greatest thing since starbucks.
A few weeks ago, I perused an episode of Dr. Who during a PBS pledge drive...it was utterly awful...so entirely devoid of narraitive worth.
I have every episode of Dr. Who ever broadcast in the US on videotape in boxes in my parent's house. What was I thinking! I could have been reading great literature or learning Japanese, Thai, Arabic, Hungarian, and Dutch during that time!
Posted by: jason at June 22, 2004 3:37 PM