Critical mass
When do you reach critical mass with your book or movie collection? When do you reach the point that you couldn’t possibly watch all those movies again, or read those books? Maybe it’s just increasing demands on time, but I keep examining my book collection, and feel more and more guilty. I’m attached to these books, and it’s possible that I’ll read some of them again. A few, I’ve never read, but have good intentions of reading. When should I just give up?
I should say that I already underwent an 80-book purge or so already this year, but am looking to do more.
When I moved, I gave a handful of movies away. I’ve listed another on half.com. But it’s somehow harder for me to part with my movies. I’m not going to say much about my Doctor Who collection either, and am attempting to preempt any smart-assed remarks. Which there will be.
I felt great when I got rid of a bunch of stuff during my move. Some of it went to Goodwill, and other things went to people I know.
Then I didn’t feel so great when I had to start unpacking, and realized I still have too much crap. I need to reevaluate what I should be keeping, and further liberate myself.
I think in an ideal world, I’d have a largely empty apartment. I like the sense of empty space, the starkness, the cleanness.
I’m never going to get that. I have too many random things I’m attached to. If I could just have a storage room for all the crap, to go visit it occasionally, that would be great.
And then just sit calmly on a beautiful couch (not orange like the one I have), in front a flat screen TVs (like the ones they make seem so cool in commercials, hanging on the walls) and watching 13 channels filled with infomercials.
Ever notice in those commericals for Plasma TVs you never see the wires trailing down the wall from behind the TV. There must be wires right? A plug? A co-ax cable? The hookups for your cable box, VCR and DVD players, game console? Where exactly do they go? And where do you put your components if you hang your TV on the wall? So many unanswered questions …
I guess if someone can afford one of those TVs, they can afford to have someone place outlets and run cable mid-way up a wall. Still, I wonder where you’re supposed to sit your components.
I could’ve made that last comment so much longer… Instead I’ll write a new one. I’ve got boxes of books spread from Virginia to Pittsburgh. My mother-in-law is coming for Thanksgiving and she is bring all my books from her attic in Pittsburgh; they have been stored there since I finished Graduate school. Still, I’ve got shit… er, stuff…in my Grandparents’ basement, my Dad’s attic, my Mom’s closet. Books, books, books. When I was in Grad school, there was this public library in Grafton, West Virginia, that would receive Penguin overstocks with the covers slashed. The library would give them away after picking some for themselves. I’d haul box after box of those books home every year. I didn’t care what the subject was, I dumped books into boxes after hardly examining them. Now I pay for that extravagance every time we move. Books are a major pain in the ass when one moves. They are too heavy for large boxes, so you end up with a hundred small boxes sitting on the floor in every room until you can get them unpacked.
Love your observation about the wall tvs. You’re so right. I can’t just have simplicity. Simplicity and elegance costs more money than I have, anyway.
Last year, my dad finally made me take five or six boxes of stuff from his basement, that’d probably been there for the last five to eight years. For the longest time, I resisted taking those things back, thinking that as long as I had boxes in my dad’s house, I was still hanging on to younger days, to living at home.
A lot of that stuff was thrown out. A few things made it with me on this move, including hideous prom pictures (though I was about 80 pounds lighter, so now I’m even madder at the pictures for reminding me of thinner yet not thin days).
If you’re a book hoarder like me, you should consider trying bookcrossing.com. Especially if you’re finding that you’re moving a bunch of stuff each time you move. I had way too many book boxes when I moved. I was telling a friend that I had 15 more boxes to unpack, and she exclaimed, I only had 15 boxes when I moved. So I didn’t tell her how many book boxes I had. I’m not sure I know. But it wasn’t pretty. And I still have two paperback boxes I need to figure out what to do with. No room for another bookcase like I’d hoped.
Next move, I’d like to consider putting all my stuff in a sandy area, and setting fire to it all. Except for this, and that, and …
NO USE! We’re meant to be packrats.
You know, Dr. Who makes good kindling.
So do statues of the Rock.
It can be tough to set molded plastic on fire. But dreck burns quite easily.
Oh, you mean the Rock is dreck, even though he is plastic? I’ll keep that in mind.