I'm serious.
My dad liked to make lists with small sketches off to the side. Very recently I was laughing about this very thing. My dad's picto-lists. I really laughed. As if it were precious. My dad, his peccadilloes. How funny. How strange. Then I found one today. In my files. A list that I had made months ago with little sketches of the listed objects off to the side. It all comes down to: dad x OCD = me x OCD I tried to crunch the numbers but, as it turns out, absolutes can't be toyed with. Math is math. More accurately, math = math. Numbers don't lie. Nor do mirrors. People do (mostly to themselves, and unsuccessfully), but not numbers. So I spent the entire day getting rid of my old files. And my shredder, old smokey (its new, posthumously deemed title, old smokey is indeed charred and smoking in the alley right now), had quite a work out today. My shredder, now at rest. Now garbage.
That's ok. Everything is garbage. And, as anyone who has ever read me knows, I'm boring. And I'm interested in less. Less stuff. Less furniture. Less darling little (handmade or mass produced) thingies made of wood, porcelain, bisque or paper. Less clothing. Less musee de la ma vie gunk and goo. Less crap. More function. Less guilt. More reality. Less being confronted by memories (because, lets face it, they're always there, the memories, whether we want to remember them or not) via every scrap of cloth, piece of plastic, or three dimensional rendering of whatever it was that happened and no longer matters. Each and every albatross, one albatross at a time. Gone. I mean, go away. Please. Because I have to be like this now, so that I'm not like that later. You know what I mean. It's been noticed. What happens to people. It's: ..lets cover every surface of every room with EVERYTHING in the world ! or: ..I don't know, one day she just started shopping.. or: ..eat everything on your plate (and while you're at it, keep every piece of paper you've ever touched).. (clears throat) NEWS BULLETIN: eating everything on one's plate when one is already sated is just a different kind of waste! No. I refuse. Help: I need less. And so this has became quite an issue with me. It really has. In my life. And it has been expressed in this blog. And I believe I've lost my readership in the process.
It's why I can say fuck right now and it doesn't matter. Because no one is reading this. Though in reality I just say frick. Or F. But don't misunderstand. Invective has it's place. Motherfucker. Motherfricker. Tomato. Potato. All good. All effective as words. I like to say the word fuck. And I like to yell. And to pretend that my yelling is singing (that is, that I think that my yelling sounds like singing, so that whomever is around doesn't know what to do, as they're both appalled and polite).
Yes. Looking more closely at the list that I found today, I can only conclude that it was started eighteen months ago. It's been updated here and there. The different colored pens that I used attest to this. It's a list of all the things I have managed to get rid of. And the very fact that there was a list (with sketches of said items in the margins) suggests that I was proud:
metal shelves
bentwood chair
big dying plant
metal milk crate
old luggage
metal shoe thing
blue ottoman
my aunt's side table
old printer
old boom box
my brother's big TV
16 bags of clothes
wooden book case
3 boxes of book
small dresser
red velvet chair circa 1899 - gone to a better location
bedroom set - to be safely stored elsewhere
3 plastic 1970's school chairs - to be similarly stored
1950's telephone table/chair - as above
3 boxes of crap - donated to charity
oval coffee table - taken by very nice family. I waved as they drove it away.
Goodbye.
But the plot took a twist a few months ago as my dad's things started to arrive steadily into my space: all that I have gotten rid of has been replaced.
Magically.
Of course I'm attempting to keep two steps ahead of this. I'm in a constant state of input/output minded readiness. Is that garbage! Incoming furniture and objects have yet to cease. And so I operate accordingly. And, as my dad's house was kept compactly (if not discretely) filled, this could go on forever. The casual observer would never have known that behind every row of books stood a second row of books. That behind or beneath the first layer of everything was a second layer of something else. Or that there might be a pair of scissors in every drawer. That's a lot of scissors.
dad's house = never empty
It's one of the reasons I like posting to my blog. Even if it is garbage, no paper is involved. And it takes no real space.
Parental recycling. Yes, I was victim once too. I currently have a set of steak knives that are older than I am. I remember they were the knives I used to cut my first steaks.
ReplyDeleteThey don't like to really get rid of their things, but they know they have to say goodbye to them, so they force us kids to adopt them instead. They can come over and visit their things, relive old memories and then say goodbye to all of their loved ones - even the bookshelves and 70's brown sunflower design lamp with enormous brown rattan shade.
I bought a pair od sketchers recently and thought of you.
Sketchers. Thank you for thinking of me. I was recently informed that if enough people ask, they'll bring back the "retros" line.
ReplyDeleteYep. My dad should have started this process with us while he was still alive. Live and learn..