Too Much Stuff

On a sleepless night after returning from Italy this past summer, I was messing around on the computer and found a teaching position in Paris at American University, no Ph.D. necessary. I thought long and hard about going after it, and thoughts of moving to Europe coalesced. Is it possible? I mean, of course it's possible. But really, for us, what would it look like.

And then sleep patterns returned to a form of normalcy, and we moved down the street, and that was the eye-opener for me.

Corrie is correct in her declarations that we have too much stuff, that she was feeling oppressed by our old place and the overflowing-ness of our stuff, but each time the word "stuff" has been used, imagine a spicier term, and by "our" stuff, it's generally understood to be "mine."

Like I said, all true.

So when we moved, it was me playing the part of Corrie, as in: WHY DO WE HAVE ALL THIS SHIT? How can we possibly ever entertain the idea of moving overseas when we have so much stuff?

This past weekend we got better organized, and our storage dungeon/writing cave got updated:

But again, the point remains: why do we have all this stuff?

There are boxes of comics, baseball cards, and random collectibles. There are tools and doodads and things meat for scrap-booking, a dozen years in the making (something that's actually Corrie's). There's camping supplies, baby stuff, and artwork---tons of artwork, so much art, and BOOKS!

Damn...I know that I have a helluva library, but it's almost unreasonable to consider moving all those books for the (CH to Oceanaire to Palm St to Bed-Stuy to Dwyce to Wells Branch to 3rd to here) eighth time...

At least we're getting down to the really important books. There's a tiny free library right across the street from us, the one's that look like bird houses, but are for locals to drop-a-book/take-a-book. I've been transferring bits of my library that have been deemed expendable ever since we moved in, living as an only-dropping-a-book patron.

And the books I'm dropping aren't garbage books, either. Here's a batch:

A Raisin in the Sun I got for a high school class, and it remains a classic, but I can't say I've opened it years. The copy of Dante's Inferno I picked up years ago and held onto for so long because it was presented in a page-for-page Italian on the left and an English translation on the right. Devil in the White City is essentially two true stories, one about the famous architect of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 White City creation and an infamous serial killer who preyed on the patrons of that fair. It's good, but I preferred the serial killer story. I'm married to an architect with legit opinions that aren't the same as a 19th century white guy.

I thought I'd written about Sanctuary before, but it's confined to the "go" pile. The Story of O, the original Fifty Shades was a Dollar Bookstore discovery, and I opted to keep Dreams From My Father over Obama's campaign trail book.

I could type ad nauseum about the books I'm trying to get rid of, or why I have them at all, and I'm afraid of boring the few people who actually read this. BUT REALLY, THERE WERE REASONS WHY I HAVE THESE BOOKS.

Here's another set:

Flight of the Iguana is from David Quammen, and is a collection of essays about nature. Catlin's paintings far overshadowed his letters, mainly because of the way he overwrote them and structured them in reverse, but that issue had been corrected in this edition, deftly edited by Peter Mathiessen, who, I learned this summer, was a favorite author Thomas Pynchon. Worse than Watergate...seems quaint today. Max Weber was a pioneer into the discipline called sociology today.

But really...essays on Berlin slums? WWI and WWII were some of the social consequences of his observations, and I have the a more in depth collection of the fantastic paintings from Catlin. The other two were easily parted with.

This sub-title caught me at some point: "Humans of the Sea:"

But John Lilly wrote these two research papers before I was born, and I'm sure in the last forty years more research has been done, and, like Robert Bakker's dinosaur book, the point being argued is mostly part of the current narrative: dolphins are remarkably brilliant and have abilities and sense beyond our comprehension (like how they can relay a three-dimensional image of a scenario from memory to another dolphin, something unknown to Lilly at the time).

In that same vein is the next book, A Sand County Almanac:

This collection of environmental essays helped change the national conversation on conservation efforts. But it was first published in 1949. Only republicans need to be convinced the environment shouldn't be destroyed in the name of money.

Why did I have these books for so long? Why couldn't I ever give them up?

I fear that my own connection to books like these, important but dispensable, is how I've surrounded myself with so much shit...this is the pack-rat mentality.

I'm not a hoarder, exactly, but when it comes to ideas my brain has deemed important, I certainly am one.

And I have a hard time convincing myself that letting go of the proof of these ideas is ever okay. I feel like that's a symptom of a broad issue that's afflicting this country and its culture right now: facts being the enemy.

Anyway, the boring inner turmoil of a languishing intellectual is just that: lots of blah blah blah.

"I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the righteous man." --- Jules Winfield