A Place for My Stuff

Another edition of, "Why do I still have this?"

Some oddities lying in a short box behind my couch.

• Padlock from high school.  I went to a private high school and we were required to buy our own padlocks.  Actually, we ended up buying two: one for the main locker, and one for gym class.  Not only that, but they had to be bought from the school, because these particular combination locks had a keyhole in the back so that the administration could, if need(?) be, open your locker and search it.  Granted I do have a very good long term member, especially for numbers.  For example, I can still remember the room number of the hotel room I stayed at when I was first went to Florida at the age of 4 (it was #209).  But the combination I dialed in every day at high school is a bit fuzzy.  14, 29, something?  I think?

I remember reading YEARS ago on alt.locksmithing's FAQ there was a way of determining the combination from the serial number on the back, or at least some way to astronomically narrow the possibilities down.  Unfortunately, all copies I've seen of it since then, don't have the details.  I might as well just throw this out.  It's not like I still have a locker or a bicycle.

• Spirals from spiral notebooks.  If I remember correctly, I was given a bunch of single-subject notebooks from one of my parents at the start of some school year, who were unaware of the fact that I did everything through a 3-ring binder.  That way, I could order pages however I wanted, insert new pages in between two written pages, easily take things out with getting the rips down the side, etc.  So I carefully twisted the coils until they weaved themselves out of binding (but still intact), then used the paper to fill my binder.  The cardboard laid around near my bureau for years until I think I finally threw it out.

So why do I still have these coils of wire?  Creative art project that isn't going to happen?  Maybe I should use them to pick my lock.  Or, just throw them away along with the lock.

• Fan blade.  This is a thin aluminum fan blade.  Maybe it was from a big computer.  Or an air conditioner.  Or a refrigerator.  Who knows.  It will forever be a mystery.  A mystery not as deep of course, as why I still have the damn thing.
• Headphones.  I probably have several more pairs of these lying around.  I was an avid walkman listener when I was a kid.  Eventually a walkman would bust and I'd get a new one, which of course came with headphones.  There were probably other devices I've bought over the years that came with headphones.  And always the cheap variety, of course.  The "cat's toy", as one audiophile I knew put it.  These ones didn't even have the sponge coverings.  Do they still work?  Do I care?  Into the trash you go.  But don't worry, you can talk about metal with the "metal fan" you'll find in the trash too.
• Bag of many many tea lights.  You know, those short little white candles, snugly nestled in a metal cup.  I can't remember how I got these.  I do use candles once in a while, but not these types.  I think I'll give them to my friend who owns an occult shop, when I see her tomorrow.
• Jar stuffed with...plastic bags? Yes, a small decorative glass jar, stuffed with plastic shopping bags.  I've had this thing since high school.  I'll at least give it the dignity of removing the bags and sticking it in one of my mostly empty cabinets.  I'm sure I can wash it, fill it with M&Ms and give it to somebody as a gift.  Yes, I'll admit that I'm still weak when it comes down to throwing away glass objects.  But at least it will be off my living room floor. 

No, wait a minute, it's not just stuffed with plastic bags.  Its a plastic bag filled with...seashells! I don't know about you people living in other parts of the country, especially the mid-west, but here in New England seashells are a dime a dozen.  We don't know what to do with them all.  I threw out the broken ones and put the rest on my window sill.  I like 'em.  I like the sea.  I'm a New Englander.  I'm a Pisces.  Though if they stop giving me joy here on the window sill a month from now, then out they go.

• A bag of 26 plastic caps.  Oddly enough, the same exact diameter as the pad lock.  I do remember where these came from.  They're the caps from those huge jugs of water for a water cooler.  Though I can't remember if these were from work, or the home (yes, growing up in suburbia, we did have a water cooler of spring water in the kitchen. Visitors loved it.).  I guess I was saving these for my own game of checkers?  Or Othello?  Or, how about I just throw them away without regrets?
• Thunderbolt Tube box. The box to one of my doo-dads.  Not needed.  Pitch.
• Tasmanian Devil.  The "Taz" was my fraternity's mascot.  So not surprisingly, I ended up with a couple of these back in the day as gifts.  I already sold two of them last year on eBay.  I didn't realize I had a third one lingering in my apartment.  I'm throwing this one on-line, along with a stuffed Homer Simpson and maybe the Kermit the Frog (the latter seen in one of my recent blogs).

Thrift Store Results

So here's what I ended up bringing to the thrift store.  Not surprisingly, I ended up grabbing more stuff on the way out as I was making the pile.

 

For some reason, the photo makes everything look smaller.
The green cooler is about a foot tall.

• 25 CDs.  These include the ones that the local CD store wouldn't take.  Most of these were just given to me for free.  They're promos for garage bands, or promo discs handed to me after a night at a club.  I sure as hell ain't gonna get around to listening to these.  And to think, they'll now find their way to the shelves of the thrift store.  I'm amused at the thought though of some Catholic lady with 8 kids who barely speaks any English, stumbling across some death metal CD with an inverted cross on the cover.
• Camera.  This was a 110 film camera that I actually got from Kraft.  I saved the box tops and mailed away for it.  Never used it.  At first I thought about giving it to a kid, but in the day and age of digital cameras (never mind the task of finding 110 speed film), it would probably just frustrate the kid that he or she didn't have one of those fancy cameras that show you the preview, like other people had.  Into the box you go.
• 2 Hardhats.  A while back I bought an "energy dome" (read: a Devo hat) and they suggested getting a hardhat liner to put inside, so that the hat stayed on properly.  I looked at Home Depot and couldn't find any separate liners for sale, so I just bought a hardhat and used the liner.  I gave away that energy dome as a gift, then did the same with a second one.  Once again, I ended up buying a hard hat just to use the liner.  So, this has left me with two professional construction hardhats that I had no use for.  I considered putting these on Craigslist, but figured the hell with it -- off to the thrift store.
• Desk lamp.  This little desk lamp with a mini lyre used to sit on the piano in the house I grew up in.  It was probably much older than that.  At some point I had this thing stowed away in a box, which I had when I was still living at my parents house, and for some reason still had with me.  Nice little thing, but no use for it.  Into the pile you go.
• The Coleman.  See one of the last few blogs where I talked about this green beastly thing.  Actually, you can see it in the photo. [UPDATE: I went into the thrift store the next day and saw the Coleman there for $2.99.  Heh.]
• Brita pitcher.  Again, see recent blogs.
• Strainer.  See the recent "under the kitchen sink" blog, particularly about the rusted pot.  This came with it.  It was new!  But still useless.
  
• 4 pairs of shoes.  One very worn-out pair that I bought some time in 1999 and haven't worn in years, another pair whose soles somehow got messed up and non-parallel with the ground.  Another old pair covered with paint splatterings.  A third pair that was a pair of snow books I have the damn hardest time getting on (I swear they're a half size smaller than my real size).  Then I found the fourth pair (back of the heels inside well worn into uncomfortability) in my trunk as I was loading the rest of this stuff.  And the scary thing is, this STILL leaves me with more pairs of shoes than my lady friend has.  Shouldn't it be the other way around?
• Clothes, clothes, clothes!  7 pairs of shorts, 1 unusual pair of socks, 3 pairs of too-tight briefs, 3 pairs of pants, 20(!) shirts, and a sweater with a weird neck.  And this isn't even counting the other 20 shirts I plan on selling on-line.

What Lurks Beneath the Kitchen Sink?

I have an embarrassing confession to make, and I really don't have an excuse for it.  I'll get to that in a moment.  First, let me just say a word about recycling.

Contrary to popular belief, not all recycling is good.  Yes I know that offends everybody's do-good ethic, but bear with me here.  It's true.  Recycling is an industrial process, which means the act of recycling itself has some kind of environmental impact.  Recycling paper for example is more trouble than its worth, when you factor in recycling costs and the chemical output involved.  And no, paper use isn't causing a tree shortage.  That's like saying our consumption of french fries is causing a potato shortage!  Paper comes from paper mills and acres of trees specifically grown for paper.  It's not the product of native villages in the South American rain forest being bulldozed for the trees.  If you simply reuse a piece of paper by writing on both sides, then you've already done much more than what writing on one side and then recycling it would do.  I recommend reading Daniel K. Benjamin's paper, Eight Great Myths of Recycling.

Some materials however are worth recycling.  One of the problems though is that it's a hassle to do so.  I have 3 half-finished containers of brake fluid that I don't exactly want to blindly dump in the garbage, especially if doing so could potentially get me fined.  But I found the place to dump "hazardous waste" is in another town, and there's only one special day a month when you're supposed to go there.  Similarly, I've seen the hassles of trying to get rid of a propane tank.  I'm sure people would just rather chuck such things into the woods instead of paying a fee.  Take note, hippies.

Another item worth recycling, at least for the most part, is glass.  My town fortunately doesn't have mandatory recycling, but we can get blue recycle bins that are picked up in addition to the trash every week.  I looked up my town's recycling center website, and went down there this afternoon.  I got myself a bin (I think only one tenet in my building had one before, and she has since moved out), then filled it up with many empty alcohol bottles.  

No, I'm not an alcoholic.  And no, I'm not an alcoholic in denial either.  I lack a very essential requirement to being an alcoholic: drinking to excess.  I didn't start drinking until I was about 28, still have never been drunk (and have no intentions of ever getting drunk), and I stop drinking after 1 drink (two if it's my birthday).  I hate beer and wine, but I do love rums and whiskeys.  So I've saved many empty bottles of Crown Royal and Captain Morgan, mostly stashed under my sink.  Why?  I really have no answer for this.  But into the blue bin they go.

Oh yeah, and now for the confession.

My garbage disposal has been broken now for a few years.  One day I flipped the switch and it simply wasn't working.  At first I thought I blew a fuse, but the fuses were fine.  So the unit itself was busted. 

Has the landlord been lazy?  No, I've been procrastinating calling him to come and fix it.  Why?  Because I knew it would mean cleaning up all of the crap I have under the sink and in the kitchen.  I got used to it.  But still, needless to say, this is beyond ridiculous.  So I took a brave look under the sink and under the kitchen table too.  Notable oddities that I discovered:

• Britta pitcher.  Ah yes, an essential back in college.  But since then I've gotten a filter for my kitchen sink's tap.  So do I need the pitcher?  No, I don't.  It doesn't even take the same size filters.  Off to the thrift store you go.
• Squeeze bottles.  Or whatever you call these things that you fill with a beverage and attach to your bicycle.  I ended up acquiring these for free over the years, at work events and what not.  They're still good for the gym.  But do I need three of them?  I'll keep the one that's the cleanest and newest, and ditch the other two.
• Rusted cooking pot.  What do I still have this?  In case the roof starts leaking during the rain?  Which wouldn't happen anyway, since I don't live on the top floor of my apartment building?  Creative army helmet project?  I just gotta throw this thing in the dumpster.
• Unused metal strainer pot.  I bought both this and the now rusted pot together as a set, probably with something else too.  I did this because at the time I needed new pots and pans, and saw this set for ridiculously cheap.  Now I know why the price was so low.  I know the strainer still looks brand new, but the hell with it.  I already have a plastic strainer I use anyway.
• Greasy Wax paper bag containing steel wool pads.  The kind that have that blue soap to them too. So clean yet so nasty at the same time.  Bye bye.
• Matchbooks.  Despite not being a smoker at all, my father had a hobby of collecting matchbooks from different restaurants.  Yes, restaurants in Massachusetts did actually have such things, along with "Smoking Sections" were people were allowed to smoke cigarettes inside.  I started making my own collection when I was a kid, which I used to keep in a giant 1-gallon bag in my desk drawer.  At some point I switched to metal tins.  Should I just make an enormous fireball with these?  Sell some of them to possible collectors?  Can I even legally mail such things?  Time will tell.
• Personal daily planner book, 1998-1999.  Have I really been throwing this thing around for a decade?  Yikes.  Oddly enough there was a post-it on the outside for the first job recruiters I worked with and somebody's contact number.  Flipping through the book though, I'm amused to see the events from the time period: seeing Black Sabbath at an autograph signing, fraternity events, the 1998 Rod Serling Birthday Bash at the now closed ManRay club, a note to pick up the photos (which I know were the black & white ones I had done for me in Salem in '98), meeting up with an ex-turned-friend, getting ready to tape George Carlin's "You Are All Diseased" special when it aired live, my birthday party, trading Dio stuff, practicing with a new band three nights a week (half of whom are now in Plank 63), awaiting the Alice Cooper box set, seeing the Black Crowes, landing my first engineering job....there IS actually some contact info and what not that I'll be making use of.  I may just keep this around.
• Ye Olde Coleman. I remember this beverage cooler fondly, as it accompanied the family to events like picnics or the little league team that my dad coached.  Fill it up with the instant-mix Kool Aid or lemonade, hold your cup under the spout, and press the button.  And when I say I remember it, that includes events as far back as the 1970s.  Who knows, the thing may be even older than that.  It's like a white trash family heirloom.  This is an example of something I mentioned in another blog entry, "inherited clutter". My parents somehow talked me into taking this beast.

The reality of course is that I've never used it, it's a pain in the ass to clean, it's already rusting on top, and (here comes the big bold point of acceptance) I'm never GOING to use it.  We already live in an age where you can walk into a 7-Eleven and fill up a 2-liter handled cup of beverage -- for yourself!  Or go to Costco and buy a case of 24 bottles of Snapple.  If I REALLY was throwing some sort of once-a-decade outdoor event like that, I'd just as soon go with the Snapple.

So long, Coleman.  You've served the family well over the years.  But rather than rust away under my sink, you can retire with dignity at the thrift store.

The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon

Growing up in the 1980s, I used to watch a lot of anthology TV series.  That is, TV shows where each episode was a completely different story with a different cast.  There were quite a few of these that sprung up in the mid 80s: Ray Bradbury Theater, The Hitchhiker, Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, the remade Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and later on Tales from the Crypt.  Thankfully a lot these have seen DVD releases.  In fact you can buy the complete Ray Bradbury Theater series for only $15!  The catch is that the video transfer is crappy, albeit watchable.

My favorite though was probably the "new" Twilight Zone series.  I know it's impossible to bring up this 80s series without people whining about how the 60s original was oh-so-superior to this newer series (or for that matter, the 2002 re-remake with Forest Whitaker).  But the original series wasn't perfect; it had its share of bad episodes too.  More importantly, this 80s series was the one I grew up with, and in turn, it led my uncle to introducing me to the original series.  So these stores are going to stick with me in a different way than the original series ever could. Never mind that it had a much creepier intro.

And this brings me to an episode that has to deal with -- you guessed it -- a clutterholic.  Like all Twilight Zone stories, even though it's fictional I think there's a good bit of truth here about the human psyche.  I don't think it's a stretch to say that many compulsive hoarders do have the idea in the back of their mind that the(ir) world would go out of whack if their mess was tampered with.  I also have some things to say about my stuff and my landlord, but that's a whole other entry.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Facing the Wardrobe, Part 2

"See how often the simple solution will elude us." - George Carlin

In the last blog entry, I talked about the clothes-as-clutter phenomenon.  When it comes to my own wardrobe, a quick glance reveals a few key problem sources:

• Pants ("trousers" for you UK folks) or shorts that don't fit.  As Don Aslett points out in his book, a common rationalization for keeping these is, "This will be a good motivation to lose weight!"  And as he also points out, this is a bogus excuse.  I'm not obese, but the simple fact I have to face is that I don't have the same waistline that I did when I was 17 years old.  That's just the reality of the situation.  Yes, it sucks when you see a piece of clothing that looks almost brand new.  But if it's clothing that you're never ever going to wear it and it's just taking up space, then guess what?  It's junk.  Into the thrift store bin you go.

Just last week, I noticed that I had no more pairs of clean shorts available.  So I dug around to my kinda-sorta-summer clothing pile I keep in this cabinet behind my bed.  Or more accurately, stuff I moved out of my dresser because I wasn't really wearing it.  I found a pair of long black denim shorts, put them on, and realized that I couldn't button up the front of them.  I said "The hell with it, I'm just going to zip it up as far as I can, put a belt on to keep it from opening, and wear my shirt on the outside so that it covers up the front."  Stupid as that sounds, it worked.  But after a couple of days I realized just how ridiculous this was.  If there's something I can afford and should be spending money on, it SHOULD be clothes that I need and fit me.  So I ditched the old shorts, and bought 3 new pairs of shorts that FIT me at Sears for under $70. Problem solved.

• T-shirts, t-shirts, t-shirts. I've been a big collector and wearer of t-shirts ever since I was a kid.  My father used to go on a lot of business trips, and often brought back a t-shirt of a local sports team for me.  Even though I wasn't a sports fan, I still appreciated the logo aesthetics and the idea of getting these things from all different parts of the country.  That continued on my own for a long time, most especially when it came to collecting shirts of my favorite rock bands or fraternity letters.

But for better or worse, t-shirts seem to have a long shelf life.  If they're still in one piece and they fit me, then chances are I'd hang on to it.  And that's just the problem.  I have to stop and realize "Wait a minute, I've had this thing for over 15 years.  Shouldn't that be a hint that it's due for replacement?"

These days I don't really wear the rock shirts.  No offense to people who still like to wear them, and you can call me a square, but I'd feel a little unprofessional showing up at the office in my Iron Maiden t-shirt.  I might wear them to concerts, though.  But even then, if I'm keeping a shirt that I only wear at most once a year when that band comes into town, should I necessarily keep holding on to it?  (And on a side note, I don't know WHERE this notion came from that wearing a particular band's shirt to their concert is lame.  It's not.  There's nothing wrong with wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt to an Iron Maiden concert.  It only makes sense.  What DOES look stupid, is wearing an Ozzy Osbourne shirt to an Iron Maiden concert.  Or even worse, to a Dio concert, which I've seen people do.  You make yourself look like you showed up to the venue on the wrong night, maybe even the wrong decade.)

To help with this, a few years ago I mostly stopped buying shirts at concerts.  Instead, if I want a souvenir from a show, I buy something smaller like a key chain.  I've built up a good collection of these key chains over the past 10 years, but they certainly take up less room than two dozen t-shirts.  Not to mention they were cheaper.  (Amusing side note #2: I went to see Blue Oyster Cult in Boston some years back, and the t-shirts cost more than the price of the ticket itself.  Weird how the business of band marketing works.)

And as I've mentioned before, the good news is that old rock shirts are surprisingly in somewhat of a demand on eBay.  I've sold a number of them through there, and I have more to go.

• Clothes kept for messy occasions. You know, there's that shirt that you wore when you helped somebody paint a house, so you keep it for the next occasion when you plan on painting a house, or do some other kind of manual labor where you expect to get dirty and thus want to wear clothing whose condition you don't care about.  This is still a good idea, BUT...do I really need 5 shirts like this?  Particularly when it's so rare that I do it?

The same goes for shirts that you might keep only for sleepwear.  I've gotten a number of free white t-shirts over the years from office events, karaoke contests, bonus gifts at stores, etc.  And aside from sleepwear or under a dress shirt, I do not wear white t-shirts.  It's just an odd quirk I have.  So even if that "Bud Light" shirt I have has never been worn, chances are I'm not going to wear it.  Into the thrift sore bin you go.  I also found at least 2 pairs of shoes that were beyond worn, when again 1 "bad" pair of shoes for rare manual work is all you need, if even that.  Into the thrift store bag you go.

As mentioned before, when you take clothes and other items to a thrift store (and they basically will take anything you've got so long as it isn't shredded or stinky), you'll typically get a slip of paper to fill out with the estimated value of the clothes.  Then you save this receipt for your taxes, and apply it to get a tax write-off.  I keep all of my tax stuff in clasp envelopes, divided and labeled by year ("2008 taxes", "2009 taxes", etc.).  I recommend doing the same.  Otherwise you may forget all about by the time April rolls around!

Style vs. Fashion, and Facing the Wardrobe (part 1)

A while back in an earlier post, I mentioned another common source of clutter: clothing.  I managed to make a huge dent in my wardrobe last year, getting rid of several bags of stuff that probably included things I've held on to since high school.  But I thought this was a topic that more than warranted its own blog entry.  Heck, I may just stretch it out to several.

Before I dig into Don Aslett's good ol' book, Clutter's Last Stand, I'd like to get a certain pet peeve of mine out of the way.  When it comes to clothing, two terms that come up often are fashion and style.  Aslett and many others use these two terms as synonyms.  They're not!  To quote another wise man:

"Only a fool mistakes laughter for humor and fashion for style."
- Anton Szandor LaVey

What's the difference between fashion and style?  Your style is your overall sense of aesthetics that you project.  Some folks like to wear all black clothes all the time.  Some like to wear bolo ties and cowboy hats.  Some dye their hair purple and wear spiked belts.  These all convey the person's chosen style.

Fashion, on the other hand,is a set of preconceived styles that are dictated to the public by the fashion industry.  When people say things like "bell-bottoms are out of style", what they really mean is "out of fashion".  There's nothing actually wrong with wearing clothing that the status-quo doesn't approve of.  Likewise, there's nothing wrong with wearing all "fashionable" (erroneously called "in-style") clothing; just don't kid yourself into thinking you're being all that original with it.  But I shouldn't have to tell you this.

So now that I've got that out of the way, lets move on to the topic of clothing clutter.

Not surprisingly, Aslett has an entire chapter dedicated to the subject.  Obviously trying to keep up with new fashion trends is going to lead to a dangerously expanding wardrobe.  But even if you don't have that problem, we still have to take a brave look into the closet, literally.  I'd like to summarize it by listing some of my favorite quotes from this chapter.

• "Did you know ... that YOU, all by yourself, have more clothes than the whole general store in an early western town??  That could make you right proud, pardner -- but it doesn't because for months and years already you've known in your heart that your inventory's overstocked."
• "Apparel that is neat, attractive, comfortable, wears well, protects us, and helps us project our feelings and physical self is a worthy investment.  It's the clothes that over-decorate us, strain our personality and our pocketbook, that are clutter."
• "Most of us only wear about 20% of the clothes in our closets.  But we have to sort through it ALL (100%) every time we go to get dressed [...] Like other junk, their ownership obligates us to use them."
• "The clothes we wear the least are often the ones we bought the fastest.  We really didn't need or want them, but the mood of the moment mesmerized us.  We've all done it."
• "OK, it's arty-looking and it was a great buy, but is YOUR husband going to wear that beret? [...] It's sometimes a nice idea to give gifts your loved ones would never indulge themselves in, but don't let your impulses and fantasies override their self-image -- you might end up making them feel uncomfortable and guilty, in addition to junking up their lives."
• "No matter how rich you are, whether it was a gift or not, non-used clothes are clutter.  When you have so many clothes that they can't fit into the normal closets of a normal home -- mobile, condo, dorm room, or apartment -- you have too many!"
• "Go to your closet right now... Pick out all of your impulse clothes... Don't ask yourself 'Why did I do it?' We're all weak.  Ask yourself 'Why do I KEEP it?'  Then you know what to do."

I put this last statement in boldface because besides being a good rule for judging how to clear out the wardrobe, it really summarizes the book in general too, and has been a major key for me in cutting through the rationalizations and getting rid of clutter in general.

There are some more things to be said about clothes, so I'll continue this in other blog entry, namely concerning Aslett's suggested exercises for dejunking your closet, and my own progress in this regard. 

Change in Plans

After keeping this blog up every day for a while now, I'm going to shoot for an every-other-day schedule instead.  This is because 1) I've got other stuff I'm busy with, and more importantly 2) I don't want to have to end up writing TOO much "filler" on this blog.

Rest assured, I have plenty of more "stuff" relevant stuff to write about.  I'm making progress on my own clutter, but my goal is far from being over.

In the meantime, here's a random clip from Mr. Show with Bob and David.  If you don't own this excellent series of DVD, buy it!  See you in 2 days.

Time for a Comedy Break!

Those of you who know me, know that I am an avid fan of comedy.  I own tons of comedy CDs, go out to see my favorite stand-up comedians live (and yes, I'm happy to say that I saw George Carlin perform live several times).  I have written published articles about comedy, and of course have been hosting an on-line comedy show for over 6 years.  I'm really picky when it comes to comedy too.

I am also a musician.  I've been playing bass for over two decades, but in recent years have taken up the hobby of collecting and playing different instruments. These days I mostly sing and play harmonica, but I also play the mandolin, balalaika, recorder, wooden flute, kahn flute, melodica, kalimba, and other oddities.  (Come to think of it, I might write a blog about all of the musician-related clutter I've collected over the years: magazines, sheet music, saved broken strings, etc.)

Having said all that...

I must say that THIS is one of the absolute funniest things I have seen in my entire life:

"Ojala [...] overdubs rock concert footage with his own bad guitar playing"

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/02/watch-the-parod/

Hopefully, some of you will feel the same way when you watch these clips. 

Oh, and do NOT watch these clips while drinking a beverage!  I will not be held responsible for monitors damanged by spitting out you drink on it.

In Defense of My Stuff

Yesterday I mentioned the strange phenomenon of researching a problem you might have, only to find people who have your same problem but twice as worse.  As you can imagine, the internet has no shortage of pics, stories, and video clips of pack rats to the ninth power. And yes, there are indeed pack rats out there who are in much worse shape than I have ever been. 

Please don't think this is my attempt to rationalize my problem.  I do admittedly still have a problem that I'm working out, but the truth of the matter is there are some really nasty, compulsive hoarders out there.  One real important difference is that my clutter does not include garbage (that is, food-related trash).  Do I look into my fridge and find the occasional expired-2-months-ago container of "food" growing in the back of the second shelf?  Stacks of dirty bowls in the sink?  Of course.  But...I sure don't find such a thing in my living room!  My place is still pretty bad, but I've never had a problem with insects or rodents making homes.  I don't have any pets.  I don't have any kids or roommates.  I clean up spills.  I take the trash out.  I even clean the toilet.  As my friend said, "You have a problem with clutter, but it's CLEAN clutter."

Sad to say, some people DO have homes where food is rotting in the bedroom.  One of these clips I found was a Dr. Phil episode on "extreme hoarding". Part 1 of 6 can be found here.

If you think Dr. Phil is a dork, and that his show consists of giving over-simplified solutions to simple-minded twits...well, you'd be correct.  Not surprisingly, this story gets turned into a whole whine fest with sobbing over "the children", irrelevant parts of the woman's life, the happy ending, etc.  In fact, at one point the guest calls out Dr. Phil on an out-of-context interview clip inserted somewhere.  But if you just let the sappy crap slide, it's still an interesting episode, if anything just to look at the disgusting house.  Enjoy.

Problem People Patterns

I've noticed some similarities among people's large-scale "problems" and how they're typical dealt with.  Whether somebody has a problem with their weight, drinking, drugs, or even clutter, this pattern seems to develop:

1. One or more friends approach the person for an intervention.
2. The person is sent to a group of people with the same problem.
3. The person finds out quick that their problem is not NEARLY as bad as some of the other people in the group.  It's easy to find somebody who has the same problem, but ten times as worse.
4. The person either gets better, or goes into some weird relapse, or just trades one compulsion for another.

For the record, #1 has never really happened to me.  I've have people who whined about my pack rat habits or made similar little off-hand comments about my apartment, but never had somebody spring a convention on me.  As I've said before, this whole blog is about ME dealing with my problem as an individual.  It's pretty simple: I saw something in my life I wanted to change because it was hindering my earthly enjoyment, so I'm doing something about it.  And having some strange fun along the way.  Even if it's not a change that can take place within a day (it's not only about eliminating stuff, but stopping bad pack rat habits themselves), it's not something I'm seeing a 12-step program for, nor would ever want to.  12-step programs are essentially founded on self-loathing, which ain't my bag.  Yes, I know that when I said "Hi, my name is Bill and I'm a pack rat", it sounded like a 12-step thing, but that was intentional and partly to be humorous.

I suppose #2 applies in the sense that I've gotten books, articles, and videos on the subject to try to educate myself on the matter.  Though I still don't take it all dogmatically.  When I bought Clutter's Last Stand, I underlined the parts that I liked, drew little stars next to quotes that were exceptional, and wrote other margin notes.  I thought some parts were horrible.  But the parts that were helpful greatly outweighed those bad ones.  I'll talk more about #3 in tomorrow's blog.

Now #3 is a really interesting one, and it's the one that got me thinking into making this whole blog entry to begin with.  People who weigh 500 pounds go to a fat camp where they meet some people who are 800 pounds.  Some alcoholic who blacks out every weekend goes to an AA meeting and meets people with a twice as worse liver who've tried drinking mouthwash or isopropyl alcohol for a fix.  Now that doesn't mean the first person doesn't have a problem; he or she certainly does.  But again, wow...you realize just how deeper the spectrum goes. I do wonder if this makes some people say, for better or worse, "Well damn, I can't have THAT much of a problem if SHE'S supposed to be the average example."

As for #4, well obviously I'm shooting for a happy ending!  But I've most certainly seen people who try to get rid of one addiction, only to replace it with something else.  A real popular example is the alcoholic who trades the bottle for the Bible.  They go from mindless drunk to mindless Jesus freak, compulsively holding on to ideologies they never would have pushed a year ago, and are just as self-loathing and disconnected from the world.  Not to mention downright annoying.  At least drunks pass out!

Penn & Teller did a great episode on 12-step programs in their second season of Bullshit!.  The episode seems to get uploaded and deleted from YouTube from time to time (it IS, after all, copyrighted work that you can buy in a store).  But hopefully this clip is still running by the time you read this: