sjrozan

I had to laugh when I read my sister's strategy for coping with clutter, in Saturday's comments.

"I have been de-cluttering for a while and have a pretty good system- I box up the things I don't want to see anymore and bring them to the storage building we have here on the farm where I store them, never to be seen again until I bring another box of stuff to store, never to be seen again until...so on and so on until the building is full when I plan to set it on fire!"

My first reaction is, YOU HAVE A FARM WITH STORAGE BUILDINGS!!! But then I had to admit that in point of unassailable fact I'd been using a variant of that strategy myself. I had a rented room in a storage facility seven blocks from here, where I kept the family papers I'd ended up with after our parents died, and lots of books, and some furniture, and all that STUFF that has no other category (a carved and painted baseball bat, souvenir of Mexico, circa 1960...). And I never went over there either, except to shove more stuff in.

But this is NYC. Last summer we all got notices: everything has to be moved out, your contract is cancelled, the building's being renovated for condos!

And the need to deal with that STUFF is what sparked my attitude adjustment on the need for stuff. And that's what expanded into a re-assessment on the need for non-tangible, but just as annoying, stuff.

sjrozan I'm a writer, at work on my 11th book. This blog is a record of random and less-random thoughts. If you want to know more about me, check my website, linked here. I also had a blog going from spring through late fall 2004 about the publishing process for my 9th book, ABSENT FRIENDS. That blog's called "Progress" and you can find the link here. I won't make any more entries but I'm leaving it up in case anyone's interested; the process is more or less the same from book to book.
:: JOURNAL HOME :: SUBSCRIBE TO THIS JOURNAL :: MY WEBSITE :: MY PHOTOS :: SIX-WORD STORIES :: KEITH SNYDER :: WILLIAM GIBSON :: DAVID CORBETT :: ERIC STONE :: LAURIE KING :: NEVER TOO LATE BASKETBALL :: NEVER TOO LATE BASKETBALL BLOG :: ATLANTIC CENTER FOR THE ARTS :: WRITING WORKSHOP IN ASSISI :: TALKING POINTS :: VELVETEEN RABBI :: MUSEUM OF CHINESE IN AMERICA :: MY SISTER'S ORGANIC FARM :: NATURE CONSERVANCY :: THE URBAN NATURALIST :: FOR THE BIRDS :: BIRD CINEMA :: THE JEW AND THE CARROT :: TANEYA'S HAVING A BABY :: EMAIL ::
Previous Entry :: Next Entry Read/Post Comments (9)		2008-01-07 8:29 AM City Mouse and Country Mouse I had to laugh when I read my sister's strategy for coping with clutter, in Saturday's comments. "I have been de-cluttering for a while and have a pretty good system- I box up the things I don't want to see anymore and bring them to the storage building we have here on the farm where I store them, never to be seen again until I bring another box of stuff to store, never to be seen again until...so on and so on until the building is full when I plan to set it on fire!" My first reaction is, YOU HAVE A FARM WITH STORAGE BUILDINGS!!! But then I had to admit that in point of unassailable fact I'd been using a variant of that strategy myself. I had a rented room in a storage facility seven blocks from here, where I kept the family papers I'd ended up with after our parents died, and lots of books, and some furniture, and all that STUFF that has no other category (a carved and painted baseball bat, souvenir of Mexico, circa 1960...). And I never went over there either, except to shove more stuff in. But this is NYC. Last summer we all got notices: everything has to be moved out, your contract is cancelled, the building's being renovated for condos! And the need to deal with that STUFF is what sparked my attitude adjustment on the need for stuff. And that's what expanded into a re-assessment on the need for non-tangible, but just as annoying, stuff. Read/Post Comments (9) Previous Entry :: Next Entry Back to Top