July 28, 2004

  • I'm amazed at the amount of stuff in the 'throw away, sell on ebay or at Half-Price Books, or give to charity' pile. This is from going through my storage unit a few boxes at a time and either consolidating boxes or just tossing all the crap that's in them.

    Some of them have, like, a handful of old receipts in them. For real. I wonder what the hell I was thinking at the time. And then I think: Maybe someone broke into my storage unit, pulled a box out of the middle of the stack, stole all the stuff in the box, left a handful of receipts, and put the box back.

    Or not.

    But the point here, I think, is that I got to the boxes of books, and I found the courage to put a lot of that stuff in the 'get rid of it' pile.

    Once upon a time, I was perseverating on Aldous Huxley, so I ended up with most of his novels. A whole bookshelf's-worth. They're all going away now. I'm keeping the Harlan Ellison stuff, despite the fact that he was another perseveration, because he's actually good, and much more relevant to my life now. Not that I'll re-read them all any time soon, however.

    I have a first edition of Huxley's 'Island,' but with no dust jacket, and damaged with soot. I found it in a free pile somewhere. 'Island' is one of my favorite books, but I'll never read this sooty edition. So do I go to the trouble of finding out if it's worth anything? Do I restore it somehow, remove the soot, find a scan of the dust jacket I can print out to make it at least seem a little bit desirable? Do I try to get on 'Antiques Roadshow' just because of this crummy book?

    Indecision. It's what kills the momentum, and is the reason I need a storage unit in the first place.

Comments (3)

  • Getting rid of stuff is hard to do for some folks. It's hard for me at time and easy at other times. I just have to match up the time with the event.

  • I used to save so much shit. Just because I liked it. Or thought I might need it in the future.

    Indecision? I suggest keeping a Magic 8-Ball as a friend and oracle, and actually following its bidding. It gets rid of that pesky feeling of responsibility for your choices.

    In fact, I feel it's how the supreme court should decide on the next president.

  • Having just sold, trashed or gifted away pretty much everything I own that would not fit into my '85 Jetta, I can relate heavily to the joy of Purge. Actually, I do this once every ten years or so, and I heartily recommend it. Cheers!! - p

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