thoughts on stuff

I'm getting tired of being a nerd. I just bought antimicrobial underwear and got a little thrill when it showed up. It looks like plain old (new) underwear. Thank God it doesn't shine and too bad they don't have patterns.

Another tangent in this pre-trip saga has been Organizing My Life. 'Til now I've had seven boxes at my folks' and I'm very proud of that one-digit number. I just added three more and now it's starting to get a little hairy. Roomie has moved out and it's VERY CLEAR to me exactly how much stuff I have--the liquor store is going to know my name after the sixteen times I've asked them for boxes (also, the liquor store sells coffee. I think they're trying to corner the entire addictive beverage market). The little boxes are so cute, and so stackable--I'm just hoping they stack up as cutely in my car. Which is a hoss, so I'm not really worried. (Whoever wrote that wikipedia article broke into my driveway and photographed Li'l Skip, I just know it.)

The original plan was to go Jesus and sell all my possessions, but then I realized, if I sell all my possessions...I'll have to buy new ones. Even antimicrobial underwear will not last me forever. And seeing as I'm not forty and apparently not a nester, I have very few whatchamacallits. So we've gone with the St. Lucia plan, which is, if it's something I wouldn't pray to St. Lucia for if I lost it (there's a handy rhyme, go Catholicism), it gets tossed. So far, that's been a box full of shoes that were already lost under my bed for the past 10 months and a miniature wooden sleigh that Wolfram Research sent me full of chocolates at X-mas.

Packing always brings out this debate about how to live I have with myself, um, every time I pack. Do I NEED this? How about this? And this? Or--hold up a sec--do I need ANYTHING? And when I get to the point where I've boxed everything up I think, I could just toss it now. I can't see it--I wouldn't even notice--it looks like trash from here--bye, bye. But then common sense, or something, kicks in and says, come on, now, kid (that's what I call myself), a necklace or two never hurt anyone. When you unpack that box, you won't think, Christ, I am worldly. You'll think, hey, I missed that sweater! So much! And aren't I lucky to have parents who send me Easter-themed mugs! And what a nice collection of love letters from the insane-o twins--I mean my sisters--I have. And no, it's not possible to have too many copies of Joy in the Morning.

So the guilt at my attachment to things subsides and I continue to haul my boxes from place to place and wonder what it would be like to actually not own a single thing, not even the best little French press that's been keeping me in coffee for three years now, not even a jar of pennies I've picked up lucky all over the place, not even a jacket, nevermind ten. I think it would be liberating, like everyone says. Heck, getting rid of unuseable shoes felt good. But it'd also be jarring. If I didn't have a copy of Joy in the Morning with me, wherever I was wouldn't feel like home. And there might be something to be said for that--never feeling at home on Earth--but I don't want to say it. I like my little existence. It's a good collection.