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pseydtonneIt's been a long time since I've had the majority of my possession outside their liquor boxes.
Things are coming along in the unpacking department. Many of my books, all of my CDs, DVDs and vinyl, and many of my computers are accessible and visitor-friendly. You, yes you, could walk into my apartment, walk up to the music collections and find too many Rush albums that haven't been played in years. Yes, that includes Caress of Steel. For some reason, I only have Signals on cassette.
This brings me to a bone of contention on Maggie's part. I have a lot of audio cassettes, most of which are in a box labelled "Putamayo Accounts A-L" (an old suite mate from college had a father in the tchotchke section of the record industry). I must own about 300 tapes, some of which I've never played. I'd love to put these tapes back onto shelves of some sort. Maggie would like to put some of these tapes into the garbage.
This is not an issue of violence or hatred on her part. I have a lot of crap I'll never use. I don't sort through it. I finally have a chance now that I can get things out of boxes and onto flat surfaces. Some of these objects are garbage, the kind that doesn't even have sentimental value.
I've had other purges since college. I threw out two years of Boston Phoenices and Weekly Digs last time. Did you know the space they occupied was enough to make a clear path one foot deep from the door to my bed?
Throwing things out just doesn't happen when you live inland. Your life is so dull that you need to have shrines to the past to keep your mind occupied. You go insane from the cruft, yet you can't even perceive the change.
Now I live where space is at a premium. Towers containing horizontal planes are valued commodities. Desktop space is real estate. I clean, I donate, I give things away because I can no longer see my need in an object but I can still see value.
Abe Lincoln was a very efficient speaker. read the Gettysburg Address some time and see the modernist clarity of his consecration. To his contemporaries, he spoke as if he was in a hurry. It turns out he was speaking to the future, when time would be metered tightly and mind share would center on koanesque angularity. Also, he used the three-verb trick a lot: "I aye, I bee, I cee because I want to punctuate." I learned a lot from him.
I collapsed several boxes this evening while watching old episodes of the Ben Stiller Show on Comedy Central. I remembered going with my mom back in the mid-90s to gather these boxes from a liquor store in a suburb of Utica. She taught me the value of boxes from liquor stores: the box leaves are glued at the bottom to keep the heavy glass and booze from falling and shattering during transport. The boxes can hold 8 liters of whiskey, but they can also hold two years of paperwork from a project. I treasured these boxes.
I don't need these boxes anymore. I can always get more -- Bostonians drink plenty. I am going to stay in this place for a while with the woman I love. I am going to get comfortable, damnit.
Tearing apart these boxes was like stirring ashes. I could feel souls lift up. I could feel the boxes sigh in relief that they'd no longer need to hold things in perpetuity. They now return to the Cosmos -- or to a recycling center in Lawrence.
I am becoming free to pursue new activities. I can learn to code. I can also learn to save computers. I can get beyond the mere words of my past and make my hands alive. I could also stand to play a video game, but that can wait.
I am creating a home that isn't just mine. It's nicer than staring at my liquor box navel. Funny that I don't dig alcoholics but I needed their addiction to feed mine.
-"now I'm eating so quick I've got hours to drink", Dante
Things are coming along in the unpacking department. Many of my books, all of my CDs, DVDs and vinyl, and many of my computers are accessible and visitor-friendly. You, yes you, could walk into my apartment, walk up to the music collections and find too many Rush albums that haven't been played in years. Yes, that includes Caress of Steel. For some reason, I only have Signals on cassette.
This brings me to a bone of contention on Maggie's part. I have a lot of audio cassettes, most of which are in a box labelled "Putamayo Accounts A-L" (an old suite mate from college had a father in the tchotchke section of the record industry). I must own about 300 tapes, some of which I've never played. I'd love to put these tapes back onto shelves of some sort. Maggie would like to put some of these tapes into the garbage.
This is not an issue of violence or hatred on her part. I have a lot of crap I'll never use. I don't sort through it. I finally have a chance now that I can get things out of boxes and onto flat surfaces. Some of these objects are garbage, the kind that doesn't even have sentimental value.
I've had other purges since college. I threw out two years of Boston Phoenices and Weekly Digs last time. Did you know the space they occupied was enough to make a clear path one foot deep from the door to my bed?
Throwing things out just doesn't happen when you live inland. Your life is so dull that you need to have shrines to the past to keep your mind occupied. You go insane from the cruft, yet you can't even perceive the change.
Now I live where space is at a premium. Towers containing horizontal planes are valued commodities. Desktop space is real estate. I clean, I donate, I give things away because I can no longer see my need in an object but I can still see value.
Abe Lincoln was a very efficient speaker. read the Gettysburg Address some time and see the modernist clarity of his consecration. To his contemporaries, he spoke as if he was in a hurry. It turns out he was speaking to the future, when time would be metered tightly and mind share would center on koanesque angularity. Also, he used the three-verb trick a lot: "I aye, I bee, I cee because I want to punctuate." I learned a lot from him.
I collapsed several boxes this evening while watching old episodes of the Ben Stiller Show on Comedy Central. I remembered going with my mom back in the mid-90s to gather these boxes from a liquor store in a suburb of Utica. She taught me the value of boxes from liquor stores: the box leaves are glued at the bottom to keep the heavy glass and booze from falling and shattering during transport. The boxes can hold 8 liters of whiskey, but they can also hold two years of paperwork from a project. I treasured these boxes.
I don't need these boxes anymore. I can always get more -- Bostonians drink plenty. I am going to stay in this place for a while with the woman I love. I am going to get comfortable, damnit.
Tearing apart these boxes was like stirring ashes. I could feel souls lift up. I could feel the boxes sigh in relief that they'd no longer need to hold things in perpetuity. They now return to the Cosmos -- or to a recycling center in Lawrence.
I am becoming free to pursue new activities. I can learn to code. I can also learn to save computers. I can get beyond the mere words of my past and make my hands alive. I could also stand to play a video game, but that can wait.
I am creating a home that isn't just mine. It's nicer than staring at my liquor box navel. Funny that I don't dig alcoholics but I needed their addiction to feed mine.
-"now I'm eating so quick I've got hours to drink", Dante
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Off-topic and being a pain in the ass
Date: 2003-08-19 06:25 am (UTC)Olive steel in the hour of anxiety
Date: 2003-08-19 08:04 am (UTC)Wow, the need for a material possession has possessed you.
Reality knocks
Date: 2003-08-19 08:14 am (UTC)