Lessons Learned

After a day of garage sale shopping yesterday with my friends Juice and Ashley, I realized something. I realized that most people's houses are full of crap. Some people have a houses full of fascinating, good quality things like teak furniture and bakelite jewelry, but most of us have all kinds of things we just don't use anymore, never used in the first place, or can't figure out why we bought them in the first place. Ironically, a lot of it comes from garage sales, but I digress.

While my house contains some cool stuff, it also contains a bunch of stuff that is simply taking up space. Lately, I've been learning that it's best to limit the amount of crap that comes into the house. I've been doing this by canceling my Amazon Prime membership, avoiding the $1 Spot at Target, and saving my Dave and Buster's ticket points until I'm well into the thousands. One thing I don't need is another infestation of stuffed Pokemon, a condition with which I was afflicted in the late 90s.

This whole selective purchases thing is just one lesson that it's taken me 34 years to learn. When I was a kid money burned a hole in my pocket like it was a supernova. I would buy things just to have something to buy. Once my personality developed, I became slightly more selective, but not much. My weakness was always records. Or tapes, or CDs, depending on the decade. There was a time in my life when a large music collection was more important than a quality music collection. This led to my owning copies of Information Society's "Hack" and Led Zeppelin's "Presence". These days, although I will put up with the occasional 2.5 star album simply because it was the latest by a band I love, I'm no longer one to buy something that I've heard something about just to add to the collection. That's what iTunes gift cards are for.

When it comes to other types of household items, I'm very much one to hang onto things because I "might need it someday". And this can include "I can make something out of that". These are both slippery slopes. I'm learning that as an adult living a world with internet and being able to drive, the need to find things to fill the hours is less and less. I seem to have outgrown the concept of boredom, so the need to hoard rainy day activities is gone. I also have realized that "someday" is like tomorrow, it never comes. Anything that you think you may need someday is going to be obsolete eventually, and just take up space.

Nostalgia is also something that I am learning is a slippery slope. While it may be cool for a second to dig up an old piece of computer or video game equipment, it gets harder and harder to justify keeping something that is never used. This is why I no longer have my original Game Boy. I'm not going to play something that isn't backlit and requires 4 AA batteries.

This all relates to my garage sale experience in that I realized while looking through tables and tables of stuff I didn't want, it was stuff that was familiar. Aka, I had a lot of similar stuff. And I thought about why i should keep something that if today I saw it on a card table in a driveway with a $.25 sticker on it, I would keep driving. I couldn't come up with a reason why, and today I spent the afternoon getting rid of a bunch of stuff that I just don't use, or in some cases, completely forgot I owned. And it felt good. It will feel good to not have to dust, launder, organize, find a place for, put back, make room for, find a use for, move around, or pay attention to this stuff ever again. As I get to the point where my house is full of things I absolutely love, I'm glad I'm learning this lesson now and not when I'm 90. While it would be nice to be that guy Mark Hamill played in that one episode of Amazing Stories, I'd rather not have to wait until I'm old and grey to have a crazy profitable auction. I should just save my money now and not buy crap.

So here are some things I've learned that I hope to never forget:

-If you aren't using it, you won't use it.
-If you forget why you are keeping it, you don't need to.
-Just because it's 3 for $15 doesn't mean you have to buy 3 bottles of lotion. Especially since when you already have 5 full bottles of lotion at home.
-When you find yourself getting sucked in to the $1 Spot at Target, remember the old adage "You get what you pay for."
-If you wouldn't look twice at it at full price, you don't need to own it at 75% off.
-BOGO is only useful if you need 2 of something. Or if it applies to food for a party.
-Nothing that was ever worth money one day was thought to have been worth money one day at the time it was originally purchased. An item marked "Special Collector's Edition" is like explaining a joke-not worth it. Collect something only if you like it, not as a retirement plan.
-If you do plan on saving things, invest in Rubbermaid.
-Unless you are part of a family of 4 or more, do not buy anything perishable in bulk.

And one lesson that I've finally learned that has nothing do do with anything I've already talked about:
-You will love yourself in the morning if you choose an outfit the night before.

Seriously?

It's been almost 4 months since I've blogged? I suck at this. And right now it's 3:30 in the morning so i won't be blogging right now either.

Johnny Come Lately

So which is worse? Me getting into The (American) Office just in time to see Jim and Pam have a baby, or watching Degrassi-The Next Generation?

Sometimes I come late to things. I wonder if i'm less of a geek because of it. I came late to the new Doctor Who (well not really, I watched it at first, then got behind-same deal with the new Battlestar Galactica), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I've yet to see one episode of Caprica. I also tend to get way behind on shows I like, for instance Supernatural. I'm shamefully behind on that.

And now I'm starting to feel weird about blogging about TV I've never seen. I'm conflicted between thinking I could be using this time to watch more TV, and thinking that I need to stop watching TV so I have something to talk about.

40 Days

Lent begins this week. Am I Catholic? No. Do I do Lent? Yes. Why? Because I believe in the concept of slowly removing bad things from your life, and during Lent is a good time because a lot of people are removing things from their lives, and during that adjustment period, misery loves company. Or safety in numbers, pick your cliche.

This year my plan is to give up beef. It started out as ground beef, because I recently ate a dish with ground beef that had a bone in it about the size of a grain of rice. It put me right the hell off beef, so I thought the timing was good. I've been wanting to stop eating so much meat again, and I figured this would be a good gradual transition. I'm also trying to lose weight (what else is new) and I figure no beef=less fast food. I'm not a huge fan of fast food chicken, but the whole fish sandwich thing could threaten to be my downfall.

I used to be a vegetarian. Well, no, I wasn't. I didn't eat fleshy bits, but I did eat soups and such made with chicken or beef stock. And honestly, I felt a lot better. I ate a lot of cheese, but I still felt better. I didn't get sick as much, and I didn't eat nearly as much fast food. Because really, what fast food is there for a non-meat eater? Fries, salad with the chicken picked off, or Taco Bell. And let's be honest, Taco Bell is mean to me now that I am in my 30s.

I'd like to get back to this fast foodless life. I find myself thinking about fast food as a net, like no matter how busy or late it gets, I can always hit the 24 hour McDonalds. It's so funny how McDonalds used to be the best thing in the world to me (Quarter Pounder w/cheese, fries and an orange drink) and now I can barely stand up after I eat it.

So anyway, Lent. No beef. Here's hoping it will last past Easter.

Worlds Colliding

I work in the corporate world. As such, the real me does not get nearly as much of chance to come out as it had while managing a music department, even though this particular music department was in a large corporate big box store. One of my coworkers commented recently that "you don't find a lot of people like me in corporate America", and either a) he's right, or b) no one finds the opportunity to show their true selves at work. Which honestly, is probably a good thing. The workplace is often full of traitors.

Today I went to lunch with 2 of my coworkers, and while we were there Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" came on the stereo system. When I heard this, I felt very comfortable, as if an old friend just came up to the table and sat down, but also uneasy because since I was with work people, I wasn't able to focus any attention on this old friend. I work with great people, but I don't exactly feel like mentioning that one of my fondest memories is being in a bar in New York on my 21st birthday with 2 dear friends, listening to the band play mostly covers, including this very song. I also wasn't going to tell the story of seeing Joe Jackson on my birthday in Pittsburgh, then spending the following day shopping in book and record stores before the drive home, during which I ate a Sheetz hamburger on pretzel bread and found a Nittany Lions Pez dispenser.

Sometimes I try to tell stories at work, and it's obvious by their faces that no one cares. No one cares about how nice Ray Park is, or how Lou Ferrigno shoved me, or how well Dirk Benedict plays the piano, or how I was able to find a new Pez dispenser over the weekend, or what shows I'm planning on seeing. I think this is why I love conventions so much-I feel very comfortable there since people understand me. Once at a convention, a friend asked me and Chris "Hey, I've been meaning to ask you guys, is your cat named after that one Twilight Zone episode?" I almost cried. It was so nice to be understood.

I hate it when they're right.....

Many years ago, when I was a senior in high school, I had a boyfriend. Well, I THOUGHT he was a boyfriend, but Chris Rock later explained to me that I was in fact, not his girlfriend. Anyway, I dated this guy before I could drive, as I didn't drive until I was in college that winter.

One night I was talking to him on the phone, and I expressed excitement at the fact that snow had been predicted for that evening. Even though I had long outgrown playing in the snow and sledding (fun activities, but unless you can guarantee me a completely waterproof outfit and that i won't sled over a rock, I'll just hang back and watch you do it), but I loved to just watch snow. I still find watching falling snow extremely calming, as the change in barometric pressure tends to make things very still and quiet.

After I expressed my excitement, he said to me "Do you know WHY you like snow? Because you don't drive. Once you start to drive, you'll hate it as much as I do"

He expressed his interest to not ever see me again in September, so he was long gone by the next snow. I drove in the snow for the first time in the winter of 1994, in my first car, a 1988 Dodge Omni, which were small little cars. And as I dug my way out of the white blocks of frozen precipitation and drove on the roads lined with boulders of blackened slush and snow, and slid on the bridges and pumped my brakes, watched daredevils swerve around as they passed others as if the roads were as dry as the Sahara, and squinted to see out of the thin strip of clear glass on my windshield which was so small due to my frozen and warped windshield wipers, I got very angry.

I was angry because I forced to admit that he was right. I was beginning to hate the snow. Dammit.

As an adult, snow becomes and obstacle - something you have to shovel rather than something you get to play in. And I've yet to have a job that offers snow days. Once I worked for a store that closed during a level 2 snow emergency, but I'd already driven there by the time this was decided, so that doesn't count.

But I will say this. If I remember to buy bread, milk, toilet paper and cat food before the snow hits, and all I have to do is be at home staying warm, I will open my front curtains and watch the snow fall, and I'll still find it very peaceful. And I still love that.

You know what? To hell with this!

Here's the deal-

I have a job. I'm going to be 34 soon. I can't have caffeine. I enjoy beadwork and reading. So what does all of this mean? I don't want to blog every night.

Also, there are days when I get up, go to work, come home, have dinner, read a little, and go to bed. Big deal. This is the curse of being an adult. And i don't particularly feel like blogging about drinking too much then playing Mario on the weekend.

So I've decided this New Year's Resolution bores me, and I'd like to do something else. Like read 4 books a month. Let's try that one, and maybe i'll blog a book report.