I just came back from celebrating my birthday in my favorite city on the planet, Las Vegas. One of the many, many things I did out there was see Louie Anderson live. Besides having a hilarious set that night, I also got a chance to meet him and hang out with him. I even have a birthday gift I'll be sending out to HIM in a few weeks.
I also picked up one of his books, Goodbye Jumbo...Hello, Cruel World. I read it from cover to cover on the plane ride back home. Most of the book deals with his own struggle with losing weight, the loss of his mother, and dealing with the huge dysfunctional family he was born into. He does however also talk about clutter, and even did so in his live act that night too. Here are a few relevant quotes from the book that I really liked:
- "When something loses its meaning ... it's just stuff."
- [After inheriting a box of items from his mother when she passed away] "If my mom's life could be fit into a little box, what the hell was I doing with a houseful of stuff? Stuff that I don't even like?"
- "Not only didn't I know what was in most of these boxes, but I'd been doing just fine without it. [...] It was time to rid myself of the trappings of a past I no longer needed. This is what I had feared so much? I laughed."
