One of the interesting effects of this blogging thing is the way reading other people’s blogs not only gives me ideas but makes my whole being shout out in recognition,even over things that are, seemingly, fairly trivial. The post that occasioned this epiphany today was written by Vaughan Simons, concerning self-storage. It is no secret that I am a hoarder. Not only do I have more books than any sensible person would recommend, at least after being told that I live up five flights of stairs with no elevator. I also have more stuff than you would imagine possible, especially considering the cubic volume of the space I keep it all in (which, coincidentally, I also live in, which means a minimum of breathing space is also required). Not tomention the number of times I’ve moved in recent years, which ought to have given me both opportunity and motive for some proper clean-outs. But no. I have the obligatory school textbooks and notes that I will almost certainly never need again, but that nevertheless seem to be impossible to get rid of. My two maths textbooks from IB, for example, I decided more than five years ago that I really didn’t need. Somehow they still ended up in storage when I went to Britain. A few months ago I unpacked them along with all the other stuff and thought; “Huh? I thought I’d gotten rid of those, better do it now, then.” They’re still in my flat somewhere. I also have my share of old birthday and Christmas cards. Mine go back a lot further than my 18th birthday, however. What else do I have? Well, old toys, certainly. My barbie doll collection, including the masses of clothing that I made for the dolls myself on an old hand-powered sewing machine. If I ever have grandchildren, perhaps it will amuse them? I also have my brother’s old Galvatron (of the Transformers), which I actually paid him for at some point when he was selling them off. It is very cool. It has a laser gun which flashes orange light and beeps when you can get it to work (I think the battery connection or possibly the switch is a bit dodgy).
Still. It’s in my flat somewhere, in a box. Not The Box, unfortunately. Had it been I would have sold it.
The state mine is NOT in.
One going on ebay for (currently) $47. The sentimental value is not that high. In its current state, however, it’s probably not worth much to a collector. And it’s way cool).
Somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, I have the materials for, the half-finished and the complete results of virtually every art project I’ve ever started (and believe me, it’s quite a few). I have the printing block for the book-covers we printed with cut lino in 6th grade (I think it was). I assume I have the book somewhere, too, though that will be in a box with other papers (that I’ll probably never look at again), whereas the printing block is one of those “now where shall I put this?” items which has never found a place, and therefore keeps reemerging at odd intervals when I’m looking for something else. Come to think of it, I have more materials for and half-finished projects than actual complete results, as the latter have frequently been given to parents or grandparents, or even friends, for birthdays and Christmases.
My to-all-intents-and-purposes-non-complete kitchen has it’s share of oddities and well-I-guess-this-might-come-in-handy-one-days. I think I may have one of those nifty-but-cumbersome table-mounted apple-peelers. I certainly have a thingamagig for un-pitting cherries. I have six placemats depicting famous Irish writers (very pretty) that I don’t think I have ever used. They were given to me by my mother, who, incidentally, always gets a pained look on her face when my hoarding tendencies come up in conversation. I mean, really! What does she expect? I have more mugsandcups than you can shake a stick at, certainly a lot more than would be needed even were I to decide to attempt to get into Guinness for getting the largest number of people drinking tea into a flat the size of mine. If we had people sitting on the laps of people sitting on the laps of people and so on to the ceiling, all drinking tea, I would still have mugsandcups left over for the Guinness inspectors and spectators out on the stairs and on the neighbour’s balcony. Problem is, of course, that the ones I can no longer stand the look of, design-wise, are the ones with the most sentimental value. Sigh. Oh, and I just purchased 6 more this weekend through qxl.
Another category of “stuff” which I have a lot of is things-that-are-interesting-though-quite-useless. As an example of what I mean: I have a box of needles for a knitting machine my grandmother once owned. The machine is long gone, but the needles are very interesting, though quite useless, naturally. I suppose the table-mounted apple peeler comes into this category, too.
On that note, I once read a book where the author was remembering visiting his (or was it her?) two aunts. These two women, spinsters, of course, lived together in a big house, and were notorious for never throwing anything away. One big room on the first floor was given over entirely to such never-thrown-away-stuff and visiting nephews and nieces considered being allowed to rummage in there as a special treat. The room, naturally, was full of treasures – or junk, as less imaginative people would term it – but what intrigued the author the most was a cardboard box with a label on the lid on which was written, in a small, neat hand: “Pieces of string that are too short to be put to practical use and which there is therefore no earthly reason to keep.” (I am quoting from memory, but that was the gist of it.)
I love that story. I would have loved that house. A pity, really, that I don’t have a sister.
On my list of personal victories: Items I have recently managed to convince myself that there was really no point in keeping, includes every leaf from several years’ worth of Far Side and Dilbert page-a-day calendars. They have now been consigned to the paper recycling bins, and are hopefully, as we speak, being turned to better use as notepaper or kitchen rolls than they ever were as filler in my cupboards. I guess I should have kept them in a box, neatly labelled. But then, my handwriting is neither neat or small.
The whole point of this, of course, is that Vaughan’s idea is immensly sound. We should all be given a self-storage unit at the age of 18. In lieu of the governments of the world realising quite how sensible this would be, perhaps I should look into finding one myself. As there is absolutely no hope that I will come to my senses and actually throw these things out, surely an alternate way of de-cluttering would simply be to admit defeat and find a permanent, relatively easily accessible, home for some of these items?
On a different note altogether; people are complaining about Blogger Pro on the support mailing list, claiming it’s unavailable half the time and talking about getting their money back. Luckily for me I have had no problems. The mail-to-blog behaves a little oddly occasionally, but this is a function that is still in test anyway, so I’m not too worried. Otherwise, since I upgraded (i.e. paid anything for the service), everything has been stable as a particularly stable rock. No errors. No inexplicable swallowing up of posts never to be seen again. No template wobblys. Yay me. Go Blogger. I’m sticking with it.
Noise in the room: Just Shoot Me (on tv)
