My Stuff

[jbsegal]

Remember last night, when I posted something totally inconsequential about dragoncon? Well, this is what I /meant/ to post...

I like my stuff. This is good, because I have a lot of it. Many people have commented, over the course of the move, that I have a lot of stuff. That I should get rid of some/much/all of my stuff. That there's too much of it.

I disagree, and quite honestly, I'm getting tired of hearing it.
(That said, I quite sincerely want to thank everyone who, no matter what their feelings on my/our stuff, helped me/us pack and move it. It was really unpleasant, but without the help it would have been truly hellacious. A million thanks, and we still owe you dinner.)

My stuff is many things to me. One of them being memory. I have a lousy memory in many many cases. Ironically, considering what I'm doing right this very second, I've always been a wretched diarist. I'm a poor corespondent. I just don't write much. This means that I don't have a written trail of what I've done over the years, mostly. This means that I would lose huge tracts of my past - or more accurately, be unable to bring them to the surface - without the reminders my stuff provides me.


Soft Cell: Memorabilia
(Almond/Ball)

Everywhere I go
I take a little piece of you

I collect, I reject

Photographs I took of you
Towns that I passed through
I've got to have a memory
Or I have never been there
I have never had you, had you, had you
I can't remember
Give me a reminder
I collect, I reject
Memorabilia
Memorabilia

I like little bits of glassware

Ashtrays with inscriptions
Plastic things on pencils
Bits of mass production
Postcards, pretty pictures
Little bits of plastic
Covering up the bedroom
To show you I've been there
To show you I've been there
Keychains and snowstorms
Keychains and snowstorms
Give me a remind
Give me a reminder
Memorabilia, memorabilia
Keychains and snowstorms
Memorabilia, memorabilia
I can't remember
Give me a reminder

I collect, I reject

Photographs I took of you
Towns that I passed through
I've got to have a memory
Or I have never been there
I have never had you, had you, had you
I can't remember
Give me a reminder
I collect, I reject
Memorabilia
Memorabilia

Castanets, mantillas

Torremolinos
Castanets and plastic men
Memorabilia
Memorabilia


Some people might find this sad, but I'm ok with it. There is, perhaps, a weakness to relying on so much external paraphernalia...in the case of a devistating fire/flood/chasm opening in the ground, I'm fucked...and perhaps I would discover how much I'm capable of remembering without my stuff...but as it stands, I don't see the need to practice this.

Yes, it's a pain to move. Yes, it means I need to spend more money on living space, because I need, as George Carlin so aptly put it, long before he became so cynical and rant-filled, a place for my stuff. (Of course, he was wrong when he noted "How can you want Everything In the World? You'd have no place to put it!", as part of 'Everything In the World' would include all the closet/cabinet/warehouse space in the world, too.) but it's mine and I like it. I like having random things. I like never being fully sure what I'll find in the next box I come to or when I pack my closet 4 years after I (started to) unpack it.

That said, I threw out many many things when we were packing. I threw out lots of old papers. Many trees worth of printouts of info-mac and SF-Lovers digests, made when laser printers at NYU's computing centers were free and it was the easiest way to be able to read them all - not that I ever did...; many old computers (some of which found new homes via reuse or the general Camberville end-of-August scrounge fest)(and 1 I kept, because I want it to go to a good home. Who wants a DEC Rainbow, who will promise to care for it and love it?), the table I inherited from Laurie (Pinsker) Ramey when I moved in to KLG's townhouse after she'd moved out - though I'm still using her bookshelves and I still have the chair I got from Marty Gear which used to live in the KLGAI lobby; and lots and lots of cruft. I feel ok about having purged so much, mostly, but I still have a feeling that there are things I will now never remember again, as their triggers have been removed from my life.

(The Rainbow is also symbolic of something else about my stuff. I care about the fate of much of it. Many things I have I want to go to a good home if I'm no longer going to keep it. I know that not everyone attaches the same sort of significance to things, but if I do, I can guide the fate of things that leave my possession. Not everything, mind you...I know what trash is. I throw it away. Really. I just don't necessarily agree with you on the fine points of the definition.)

(I DO have a dream (queue: Beautiful Dreamer) of managing to sort the stuff before we move again, so that most of the boxes that move out of here contain one category of thing, where that category is better than just "Stuff"...but I'm not holding my breath. At the very least, I want to get my papers in better order. All the old letters and cards and such, all the photos, etc.)

Tomorrow, too fucking early, folks come to haul out their/other people's stuff from our new place, so that we'll finally have room (swap space) to unpack and make this warehouse a home. It'll be tight, but it'll be ok. I've got my family. I've got my stuff. We'll make it.

Your choice of witty closing lines:
We all have our baggage. Mine's just stuff OTHER people can carry for me.
or
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move books. And CDs. And Vinyl. And Cassette tapes. And clothes. And games. And stuff. And cruft. And junk.

Comments

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

As I mentioned earlier today at Comicazi, I am truly sorry that I haven't been able to help you and your family with this move. I've been busy, lazy, selfish, and more busy- you know, the usual.

One reason that I would have liked to help y'all with your move is that I understand "stuff." I understand that everything means something (in as much as something can mean anything). And I've certainly had more than my fair share of generous people helping me move my stuff, and of well-intentioned people trying to help me rid myself of it. But usually my loudest and harshest critic has been myself. I spend the week or month before packing berating myself for having so much, for being "possessed by my possessions," for burdening people so much, blah, blah, blah; and the night before anyone shows up to help move, crying. It's all bullshit- all the niggling little thoughts and comments about what one should or shouldn't keep or move. It just doesn't matter- it's what we do. We collect stuff and surround ourselves with the stuff we make and collect.

Pablo Neruda tells us:

I have a crazy, crazy love of things... everything, I mean, that is made by the hand of man, every little thing... I love all things, not because they are passionate, or sweet-smelling but because, I don't know, because this ocean is yours, and mine: these buttons and wheels and little forgotten treasures, fan upon whose feathers love has scattered its blossoms, glasses, knives and scissors- all bear the trace of someone's fingers on their handle or surface, and the trace of a distant hand lost in the depths of forgetfulness...

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

(And I found the pilot...buried in my room...)

woo hoo, my turn to be pedantic

[cthulhia]

(And he picks the soft cell song covered by NIN, mwa ha ha ha ha)

stephen wright, not george carlin, said "you can't have everything. where would you put it?"

george carlin said "ever notice how everyone else's stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?"

I have a lot of crap too, but I have a huge house in upstate new york to hide it in.

Among the reasons I document my life so much with text or photos, (lately on servers I don't have to house) is so I can recycle or just dump a lot of other things. Although I've reached a point where I fear buying souvenirs. I guess that one scene in Labyrinth really affected me, along with later trips to the Zen Mountain Monastery in Phoenicia, I want to feel less burdened and blinded by materials. There is a lot of useless cruft in my life, that was a gift. It's hard to give up.

Houses in NY...

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

You see, I /used/ to have that. Then my mom pulled the ultimate "Real Genius" scene on me and Rented Out My Room.

This was weird enough on its own, but the person she rented it out to is nearly as much of a packrat as either of us are, so I had to go back there and clean up/out my stuff that was still there. I think I only came up with something like 3 trash bags, a fair number of neatened/compressed boxes and 2 boxes I brought back with me.

And yet more of my past went poof. I'm /hoping/ that the reasonably intense circumstances of 'Cleaning Out My Room' will have burned enough things into my brain so that I can pull back some of what was there by thinking about the culling process. We'll see. Or, more likely, we won't, because I'll forget to see.

[pookfreak.livejournal.com]

JB - who you are to me is as much about what is inside of you as it is about what you retain outside of you. Although I may joke (though I don't think I made comments during this move - mostly about old TVs on sidewalks *smile*) it is because that is a part of you that I love. It also reminds me of my father who has lots of STUFF as well and its part of me as I also have lots of STUFF even though I get the urge to purge here and there. I feel many connections to you and that is just one of them. God love you and your stuff JB because I do *hug*.

[totient]

my most cruft-laden move was also the one in which I went from having lots of space (at the Ranch) to hardly any at all (at the Railroad apartment on Upland Road). By that point I had boxes which had been packed when I moved into the Toybox and not unpacked again in four moves after that. It took months, but the process of opening up those boxes and finding the treasures I'd forgotten about and pitching the stuff that didn't pass my trash test any more was really ... great.

pot kettle brown

[tcb.livejournal.com]

I don't have nearly as much stuff as you do, but I do have some. And I certainly did a fair amount of cathartic purging in this move. I came across things that really made me wonder just what the hell I was thinking. Old receipts I can understand.. I decidedto toss the receipts, and keep the monthly statements, for now. But neatly wrapped and preseved mason jars? equally neatly wrapped Bread & Circus milk bottles?

I think Phi makes a good point; one that I'd been coming to myself this move.. As we get older, as we move through life, what we value changes. Some stuff, like photographs, english essays, and old concert ticket stubs continue to retain value. But other things, like the aforementioned receipts, bottles, and jars, old math tests, and printed man pages suddenly become trash after a certain point.

There also comes a point in one's life where, when one asks oneself, "But what if I ever need this Turnip Twaddler?", instead of the previous default of storing it and moving it yet again, you just decide that if you ever need one, you'll just go and buy another.

So we got rid of a lot of stuff this move. We have lots more still. I'm sure we'll get rid of more. I wonder; what things will we value next year? in 5 years? in 20?

Re: pot kettle brown

[istemi.livejournal.com]

Ah, the Turnip Twaddler!

I spent last week honoring Throwing Out Day. Throwing Out Day commemorates the anniversary of moving into a house. I want to keep the cruft down while I remember how heavy it all was and how many people helped us out.

When I was going through clothes in the attic, I kept thinking "but what if I need a (pin striped blazer and tired white silk shirt and flowered skirt and ivory flats and rainbow toe sox) on short notice and I don't haaaaaave onnneeee?"

It helped to realize that if the unlikely occasion came up, and I truly needed one of those things, I wouldn't wear the ratty one that's been in the attic for eight years.

Wish that strategy worked so well on books.

Re: pot kettle brown

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Oddly, with books, I actually managed to cull a number of those...I KNOW that my reading list is 9 months long at this point and won't be staying as it is while I catch up to it....I was able this time to realistically say "I'm never going to read this. Really." and cull some things.

If I've ever read it and liked it, though (in more than an Alan Dean Foster brain candy way) it's never going away. (Hell, some brain candy I desperately want back...the Delacorta "Alba & Gorodish" series...2 or 3 of them went missing years ago...I want them back...(_DIVA_, _NANA_, _LUNA_, _LOLA_, _VIDA_, and _ALBA_ - yes, /that/ 'Diva'...)

Re: pot kettle brown

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

You know, if I can buy a new one, that's not something that crosses that threshold into 'Stuff With Memories'. That's just 'Stuff I Hate To See Wasted' and can be dealt with. (Ok, the DEC Rainbow crosses both sides of that line...:)

It's the Stuff With Memories that I have to keep, and yeah, to a certain extent, which memories I care about change over time, but not seemingly as much as for you. That's ok. I still love you. :)

stuph

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

I tend to have opposing moods of collecting vs. throwing away, and sometimes want a bare Japanese house, and sometimes want a German castle full of carved wood and tapestries, and little glass things...

Especially since I like to make stuff, it´s hard to escew stuff that much either. OTOH, i have know some people over the years who have become so much a prisoner of their stuff that it hinders them doing much else with their life, and that scares me into throwing things out sometimes.

Glad your move went well, or at least that it is done. Good luck,
KL

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

What a great lyric. And a good summing-up post. Cuz that's EXACTLY how I feel. I've got such a bad memory, I rely on resumes to remember what jobs I've had and when I had them.

One of the downsides of staying in once place for SIX YEARS was the loss of memory posts - stakes in the mental landscape. I did SUCH when I lived THERE and I did THUS when I lived HERE. These were the people I lived with in this house, those in that house. This was the job I had here, that was the one I had there. Etc.

Another downside was the intensity of the packratting, which is eased by moving. Moving forces a cull of the cruddy bits I was too lazy to throw away on the spot, or that I meant to recycle, or (as Ted said) my priorities changed and I don't care about whatever-it-is so much.

Now the trick is, I want to stay home and just go through boxes and organize things-for-keeping into see-through or well-labeled bins and cull out broken things and organize 20 years worth of writing and sort out 15 years worth of clothes, etc.

Sometimes picking up an old thing or a half-forgotten thing brings back a flash of what my life was like when I wore it or wrote it or bought it or played with it or posed it on top of my computer monitor and it makes me SO GRATEFUL for the NOW... I'm afraid of losing that.

Now I'm trying to learn how to be neat at the start, rather than having to clean up later.