Things are silmultaneously going terribly and wonderfuly. I got a new client for my freelance writing and a good solid repeat client who keeps coming back . Also, my eBay sales and going GREAT. I'm doing almost daily shipments, but the Etsy business is really slowing down. I haven't sold anything there since December, but I have some new merchandise that I'm going to list next week, so hopefully that will bring some attention to the store. eBay, though, gee whiz. I should have sold all this junk years ago when I could have enjoyed the money, rather than using it to live.
The job hunt plods along. I applied for three positions this week- a government job with a division that I've never heard of, a television job that I'm not really qualified for but would be great at, and one in Savannah that I would love, but the commute would be a bitch. Haha.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Hoarding
I'm currently watching a show about hoarding on television. I am not a hoarder. I love getting rid of things. I hate knick knacks and trinkets, etc. A "collection" of something, does not appeal to me. Not to say that I don't have things that I like... I do! Particularly mid-century modern things, but most things that I buy, I sell (at my fabulous online vintage store Bad White Trash Memories). My mom, on the other hand, is a hoarder. Her living room area is pretty clear. Her bedroom has stacks in the corners, but it's still functional, but then she has two back bedrooms that are full of junk and she additionally built a shed in the back of her house that is also full of junk. She recently asked me to promise that I wouldn't throw out her things after she dies. I kind of changed the topic.
Amazingly, none of the children inherited my mother's hoarding tendencies. I have about 5 storage boxes full of stuff from high school, college, young adulthood etc. Some of this stuff I could sort though and throw out, it's just a matter of doing it, not a matter of being psychologically unable to let go. Some things I'll always keep- like notes between me and my girlfriends in high school or photographs of old boyfriends, but there are some things that I have been holding on to that I need to let go.
Here it is... my hoarding confession. I've kept every single greeting card, shower invitation, Christmas card, etc that I've ever received. It's ridiculous. I NEVER go through them. It's not like I enjoy going through them or anything. I just feel guilty about throwing them out. Especially if they are HANDMADE. I mean, someone thought of me. How can I just throw their thoughts and well-wishes in the trash? And what about if they die? I have a birthday card from my father, for my 20th birthday. It's a Far Side comic. The one where the guy is only a head. As in he's missing his body. And it's his birthday and all his gifts are hats. The card represents everything that was good about my father. That he sometimes remembered me and his sense of humor. He was in the hospital by my 21st birthday and dead by my 22nd. What if I'd thrown that card away?
I think that the answer is to throw things that you have a tendency to have emotional attachment to away immediately. If I'd thrown that card from my dad away immediately, I wouldn't ever remember it now most likely. But that thought also makes me sad. Stupid greeting cards! My secret shame.
Amazingly, none of the children inherited my mother's hoarding tendencies. I have about 5 storage boxes full of stuff from high school, college, young adulthood etc. Some of this stuff I could sort though and throw out, it's just a matter of doing it, not a matter of being psychologically unable to let go. Some things I'll always keep- like notes between me and my girlfriends in high school or photographs of old boyfriends, but there are some things that I have been holding on to that I need to let go.
Here it is... my hoarding confession. I've kept every single greeting card, shower invitation, Christmas card, etc that I've ever received. It's ridiculous. I NEVER go through them. It's not like I enjoy going through them or anything. I just feel guilty about throwing them out. Especially if they are HANDMADE. I mean, someone thought of me. How can I just throw their thoughts and well-wishes in the trash? And what about if they die? I have a birthday card from my father, for my 20th birthday. It's a Far Side comic. The one where the guy is only a head. As in he's missing his body. And it's his birthday and all his gifts are hats. The card represents everything that was good about my father. That he sometimes remembered me and his sense of humor. He was in the hospital by my 21st birthday and dead by my 22nd. What if I'd thrown that card away?
I think that the answer is to throw things that you have a tendency to have emotional attachment to away immediately. If I'd thrown that card from my dad away immediately, I wouldn't ever remember it now most likely. But that thought also makes me sad. Stupid greeting cards! My secret shame.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Weeds
Saturday, my friend Sarah and I started watching Weeds on DVD. On Saturday and Suday, we watched the whole first season. I rented the second season on Monday and finished it up last night. It's a fun show, if you're not sensitive. It's definitly not for the conservative crowed. It's an easy watch with no real complications or mysteries in the plot. The characters are pretty surface, but Mary Louise Parker really brings life into her character.
Sarah lives in a neighborhood similar to Weed's Agrestic and she jokingly said that the show makes her want to start selling pot to all her neighbors. Neither of us are really considering a life of crime, but it does make you wonder how prevelant marajuana use really is. Is everybody smoking weed and just not telling me? I'm certainly no goody goody, but if I was smoking pot regularly, who would I let know? I definitly wouldn't write about it on my blog, that's for sure. My husband would know, of course. I probably wouldn't tell any of my friends. Certianly not my family or co-workers, which means that if I apply those secrecy standards to other people, it's entirely possible that everyone I know is smoking pot, as Weeds would have me believe.
So, sorry if you find me sniffing you in coming weeks. I'm going to conduct some research and if you want, leave an anonymous comment confessing your habit. I won't judge. :)
Sarah lives in a neighborhood similar to Weed's Agrestic and she jokingly said that the show makes her want to start selling pot to all her neighbors. Neither of us are really considering a life of crime, but it does make you wonder how prevelant marajuana use really is. Is everybody smoking weed and just not telling me? I'm certainly no goody goody, but if I was smoking pot regularly, who would I let know? I definitly wouldn't write about it on my blog, that's for sure. My husband would know, of course. I probably wouldn't tell any of my friends. Certianly not my family or co-workers, which means that if I apply those secrecy standards to other people, it's entirely possible that everyone I know is smoking pot, as Weeds would have me believe.
So, sorry if you find me sniffing you in coming weeks. I'm going to conduct some research and if you want, leave an anonymous comment confessing your habit. I won't judge. :)
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Teenage Suicide. Don't do it.
A very close friend of mine committed suicide when we were 18. If he were alive, he would have turned 31 today and none of the things that mattered to him them would matter now. He'd probably be living in New York, maybe as a working artist. He'd be funny and charming and talented and women would be falling in love with him, but he'd probably be gay. He most certainly wouldn't be buried in a graveyard next to the Hooters in Jonesboro.
Maybe we'd still keep in touch. We'd be "friends" on myspace and I'd send him occasional emails when I was feeling nostalgic and we'd commiserate about growing up together in suburban Georgia and how far we'd come. About how we used to be so sad, but about what?
If he were alive, where would I be? Maybe I would have graduated from Georgia Tech, instead of plummeting into a horrible depression that lasted for at least five years, which rendered me completely useless in matters of calculus and chemistry. I certainly would have never met my husband and if I had, I would have never understood him.
I suppose, eventually, I would have lost my innocence nonetheless, maybe when my father died. Maybe, if I hadn't spent five years of my life grieving for the loss of my friend, I would still have some grief left for my father.
Death is like a stone thrown into a lake. Some of us get caught in the ripples, and pulled from the current of our lives. We get caught up and sucked under, but if you manage to escape the undertow, you emerge born again. A new person.
When he was alive, I defined myself by our friendship and after his death, I defined myself by my grief. And while I'm sure the immature 18-year-old version of him would appreciate my grief, I have to believe that the adult version, the person that never existed, would want me to finally, after 12 years of grief, learn to define myself by who I want to be, and not by the circumstances of other people's lives.
Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, but I won't be in Punxsutawney waiting for a rodent to tell me that spring is coming early this year.
Maybe we'd still keep in touch. We'd be "friends" on myspace and I'd send him occasional emails when I was feeling nostalgic and we'd commiserate about growing up together in suburban Georgia and how far we'd come. About how we used to be so sad, but about what?
If he were alive, where would I be? Maybe I would have graduated from Georgia Tech, instead of plummeting into a horrible depression that lasted for at least five years, which rendered me completely useless in matters of calculus and chemistry. I certainly would have never met my husband and if I had, I would have never understood him.
I suppose, eventually, I would have lost my innocence nonetheless, maybe when my father died. Maybe, if I hadn't spent five years of my life grieving for the loss of my friend, I would still have some grief left for my father.
Death is like a stone thrown into a lake. Some of us get caught in the ripples, and pulled from the current of our lives. We get caught up and sucked under, but if you manage to escape the undertow, you emerge born again. A new person.
When he was alive, I defined myself by our friendship and after his death, I defined myself by my grief. And while I'm sure the immature 18-year-old version of him would appreciate my grief, I have to believe that the adult version, the person that never existed, would want me to finally, after 12 years of grief, learn to define myself by who I want to be, and not by the circumstances of other people's lives.
Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, but I won't be in Punxsutawney waiting for a rodent to tell me that spring is coming early this year.
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