Sunday, April 20, 2008

Temporary? Eternal? Who gives a rat's arse?
Everything must go.



Yes, in an unparalleled fit of domestic (?) zeal, I've been cleaning and throwing away and hauling crap to the local charity dropoff.



I'm even getting rid of my vhs tapes which are pesky and the players on the market these days are for crap, so what's the point? I have no sentiment about any of them except one small handful.

I have a Young Ones in NTSC (I think that's what it's called? - the North American VHS format) and 3 tapes of Bottom Live (the Britcom series starring Rik Mayall & Adrian Edmondson) and I'm not keeping them, but like sad little orphan puppies, I can't bear to turn them out into the cold, cruel world of a dispassionate charity shop with no hope of understanding. If you want them, email me your address and I'll mail them to you, mkay?



So, paper, paper everywhere, and not a match to strike.

Where does it all come from? Magazines, mail, adverts, mail, onion peel unravelings of an unquiet mind scrawled on receipts and post-its and some more mail, and all sitting awaiting discovery.

Well, I couldn't be bothered to read them, and I simply don't trust them in the world. I swept my hair up into a French twist and went about the business of sorting papers into recycle/throw away/shred or burn.

Ah, burn! Burning is fun. I had a shopping bag of burnables (anything with name and address), so out I went to the chimenea. I lit a tealight in the chimenea and threw in wads of paper to get the fire rolling. Soon a furnace-like blast was emanating from its gaping piehole. Unfortunately , it was a bit of a gusty day, and I leaned too close.

Heigh Ho! Something smells funny. I didn't put any hair in that fir----SHHHIIIT!

My hair somehow got singed.

Fortunately, it was out almost immediately. I whined to Hols on the phone shortly thereafter and she said "relax, honey, like me, you're one of those people who could lose half your hair and no one would ever notice, because there's so much of it left." I suppose that was oddly comforting, but I'm still mulling it over in my pea brain. I spose we'll see how wonky it looks when I warsh it next time. Oh well: I'm making more.

As I sorted and said my goodbyes to things, I kept thinking of that line from The Devil by PJ Harvey which said
what formerly had cheered me
now seems insignificant, insignificant
...


which always leads me to think of Hamlet's soliloquy which concludes
Man delights not me, no,
nor women neither, nor women neither...



Quite.

Anyway.

Clear the Area by Imogen Heap:

13 comments:

Christina RN LMT said...

Oooooooooh...ahhhhhhhhhh...fire... love it...as long as it's not your HAIR ON FIRE!

Isn't it satisfying, though, to slog through all that crap and get it taken care of?

phlegmfatale said...

christina - indeed, not the hair, please. Yes, tremendously satisfying to let it go, and send it on its way to someone else.

Anonymous said...

Oh no! Sorry about the hair. Thank goodness it grows back.

Don't ya just feel better gettin' all that cleaned up? You inspire me to do some Spring cleaning :)

g bro said...

Come on down! We could use some help with the triage on our belongings, too. I've got books I haven't read since high school. And that was....... months ago!

LBJ said...

Each time I move I get rid of more stuff - 12 moves in 20 years (thank you airline industry!).

I still keep a couple boxes of family things, pictures, old stuffed animals from childhood, Dad even saved some of my school papers from grade school. . they're a crack up to read they're so bad. . especially the 3rd grade poety). cookbooks of my mom,Her badge from the Sheriff's department, that sort of thing.

When I left bipolar husband hell, I took just those two boxes, and a mirror I liked that was old. Left everything else. It was oddly liberating.

So now, when like you, I'm cleaning to just organize and steamline the life I'm making for myself, it is still satisfying. Order restored.

The Captain said...

I'm in the midst of purging two decades of excess stuff. It's amazing what forgotten treasures I find stuffed behind things I don't need.

Finding neat stuff while getting rid of clutter - gotta love it!

Anonymous said...

I only wish I could get Mrs Myron to get rid of some of the 50 odd year collection of STUFF. And she keeps acquiring. And when I put Delbert McClinton's "Too Much Stuff" on a loop she just throws some of her stuff at me. LOL

Buck said...

Periodic purging (of the stuff kind) is good for the soul. I firmly believe tranquility is a by-product of "neat and orderly."

I divested my self of "stuff" not quite nine years ago by going from a large house to a medium apartment to a 24-foot RV in the space of 18 months. The final step was gut-wrenching because I parted with SO much, so quickly. I miss my books, which are gone forever, and my vinyl LPs, which are in the custody of Son Number Two. And that's it.

Unless you wanna talk about the washer, dryer and dishwasher... ;-)

Carteach said...

I just walked away from decades of stuff. There's something very enriching to making do with less.
It's funny... and not 'ha ha' funny... how possessions can define us to the point of limiting us.
If we are what we have, then having very little means we can be anything we wish.

That's an adventure in it's own right.

'Need' has many definitions....

SpeakerTweaker said...

I'da gone flat barkin bugnuts had it been my hair gone ablaze. And I got lots and lots, too.

Oh, and yes, the video format that was used by North America (and many other parts of the world) is known as NTSC. The new stuff (i.e., HDTV and a couple other hi-resolution formats) falls under ATSC, if'n you were wondering.



tweaker

Unknown said...

Your friend's comment almost reminds me of intentional burning in the forest and getting rid of the "extra" hair;)

I need to do a spring cleaning in the closet myself. Even though I haven't lost all the weight I want to, I realized that even if I do, there are some things I will just never wear again. Kind of like VHS tapes.

Faith said...

I've been stopping in to read our blog. I followed it off another bog.

I've been forced into cleaning out a lot of stuff and going through things left behind by another individual. It's hard going. You don't realize what you have collected. I don't feel that possessions limit us. Some bring good memories.

Burning is a good way to take care of some stuff. Maybe a burn barrel might help prevent the singe effect.

HollyB said...

VHS tapes....why didn't I think of that...I'll be takin' mine to That big purple bldg on the Square soon and then to the Library!!! EXCELLENT Idea.
Now, If I could just convince DB to part with books neither of us re-reads or even likes...