Comment: Tic Talk

This isn’t a story about those little insects that bore into innocent humans and suck their blood. No Twilight influence here today, sorry. (Although I did just hear from my friend that the guy who played Jacob in the movie is back for the sequel! He’s doing arm curls 24/7 to look as HUGE as possible for the role.)

No, this isn’t about bugs, like the one that attached itself to my daughter last month until my superhero husband removed it. This is the story of my facial tic. It’s here and that must mean I’m stressed and it’s already driving me up a tree, which is totally counter-productive to its disappearance, but there it is.

Fortunately it started right before I started IM-ing with my friend in New York. I had to just flat out ask her if she was familiar with such things. Sadly, she was. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that once many years ago, I had the same kind of eye twitch for an evening. I was under ENORMOUS stress at the time.

Funny, I don’t feel stressed. I’ve been buzzing around the home hive like a manic bee. And I was enjoying it! But when I told my husband, he said, “Of course you’re stressed. We have a trillion dollar deficit.” (not us personally, but, you know)

So am I twitching for the nation or just for myself? It seems somehow grander and nobler to be carrying the weight of a whole country’s woes, as opposed to my little insignificant dramas.

At any rate, I’m told it will stop at some point in the next week or so. Week?! That diagnosis makes me twitch more. I thought it would just be for a few minutes, or hours. Apparently I’m in for much more twitching before it stops. Will I just get used to it? Will other people?

Time will tell.

Tic Talk

This isn’t a story about those little insects that bore into innocent humans and suck their blood. No Twilight influence here today, sorry. (Although I did just hear from my friend that the guy who played Jacob in the movie is back for the sequel! He’s doing arm curls 24/7 to look as HUGE as possible for the role.)

No, this isn’t about bugs, like the one that attached itself to my daughter last month until my superhero husband removed it. This is the story of my facial tic. It’s here and that must mean I’m stressed and it’s already driving me up a tree, which is totally counter-productive to its disappearance, but there it is.

Fortunately it started right before I started IM-ing with my friend in New York. I had to just flat out ask her if she was familiar with such things. Sadly, she was. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that once many years ago, I had the same kind of eye twitch for an evening. I was under ENORMOUS stress at the time.

Funny, I don’t feel stressed. I’ve been buzzing around the home hive like a manic bee. And I was enjoying it! But when I told my husband, he said, “Of course you’re stressed. We have a trillion dollar deficit.” (not us personally, but, you know)

So am I twitching for the nation or just for myself? It seems somehow grander and nobler to be carrying the weight of a whole country’s woes, as opposed to my little insignificant dramas.

At any rate, I’m told it will stop at some point in the next week or so. Week?! That diagnosis makes me twitch more. I thought it would just be for a few minutes, or hours. Apparently I’m in for much more twitching before it stops. Will I just get used to it? Will other people?

Time will tell.

Comment: Yup, I got it

So I went out and bought “It’s All Too Much” by Peter Walsh, as threatened, which is of course laughable given that by doing so I had to add another object to my home that tells me to get rid of my shit, and most of it at that.

But I will say this: it’s quite inspiring. I didn’t realize how much I have been hanging on to things for fairly irrational reasons, and without really any conscious thought. I have things I never look at, never wear, don’t like, or keep out of guilt. The book says, balls to that, get rid of it unless it’s either functional or beautiful (to quote William Morris, which he does).

Walsh also warns you not to fall into the oh-so-common trap of going out and buying MORE bins and MORE color-coded labels to organize your life, when really, it’s just more stuff. (As a result of reading this, I decided not to go to Target today. Besides, if there was ever a time to not buy things, it’s now. Save up and trim down.)

Walsh claims that if your house is a disaster area, your life probably is, too. So if the house is a reflection of the psyche, we are several flavors of disturbed over here. We regularly lose things, spend eons trying to find things we thought we’d put away, and find old bills and outgrown clothes everywhere we turn.

Of course this is all a strong indication that we have too much stuff. And nowhere is that truer than in the piles of paper in our “office” which is really also a guest room and, according to the kids, “the game room” even there are no games in it. I have eked out a tiny corner where my desk is, and here I sit stymied by the papers all filed in seemingly random places.

This is timely, too, because I’m trying to rewrite my resume. Sure, it has a SAHM-gap of almost six years, but it’s still good, right? I forgot how much work I used to do, and how many different jobs I had (from which none was I fired, FYI).

I need things like letters of recommendation, copies of credentials, even transcripts, and oh man, those are all somewhere, but ask me to put my hands on them immediately and you’d be SOL.

So before I can live my ideal life, which Walsh suggests you need to consider BEFORE going wild on the clutter, I need to find it. Cull some of the detritus and see what’s left. It’s actually pretty exciting.

Looks like I’m going to need a bigger recycling bin.

Comment: Ephemeral Joy

We took down the Christmas tree and its attendant lights today, and the room seems empty without them. What is it about Christmas lights that bring so much joy? Is it because they are only up for a time, and hence, temporary? Would we just get used to them if they were up all the time, like we get used to seeing clouds in the sky and birds in the trees? Probably.

So we enjoy them while they are up for a short time, and then we pack them away in a box and wait for eleven months to put them up again.

Delayed gratification.

We are not wired for that. Which is why we spend so much time trying to feel more alive and, well, gratified. We can’t wait for the feel good moment, it must be now.

But what about anticipation? That is, in some ways, sweeter than the actual execution of events. Thinking about good things to come, looking forward to something, these are among the greatest joys of life. Our expectations may be skewed, but it doesn’t matter; for the time BEFORE a positive event, we can just love that it’s coming up, and enjoy the fact that it’s before us, not behind.

So is the joy in life only in the anticipation? It can’t be, because we certainly enjoy things as they happen at least some of the time, even in our sped-up-hyper-multitasking-gadget(crack)filled lifestyle. We enjoy moments, albeit few and far between the distraction of our daily lives.

But back to the Christmas lights; they conjure nice memories for me, sure, of riding around in the back seat of our car looking at the really cool displays. But they also just remind me that there’s only a small part of the year when they’re around, so I ought to enjoy them while I can. Regardless of your personal/spiritual persuasion, little bright multi-colored lights are fun. And many religions do celebrations of light of one form or another in December.

What’s my point? My point is I love Christmas lights, but I only miss them because they’re up a fraction of a time. Waiting makes me love them. And taking them down leaves me a little sad, a little empty. But it also means there’s another chance to see them in less than a year.

Comment: "We can plant a house, we can build a tree."

Listening to Nirvana is a fascinating experience. What do you think about when you listen to it, if, indeed, you do? Are you making videos starring yourself? Remembering actual videos you’ve seen? Just rocking out and not really thinking about anything? Regretting something you did at a party in college? Wondering why Kurt Cobain couldn’t get better help for his raging depression?

I mean, come on, just listen to the guy and tell me he wasn’t totally messed up. He was a good example of tortured brilliance. But he didn’t get to enjoy his fame. In fact, he probably hated it. I’m not sure fame is a great thing for anyone, especially someone with extreme mood swings. Too much of your life is public these days, and there is literally nowhere to hide. I remember not that long before he committed suicide, seeing the cover of Rolling Stone (or possibly Spin) where Nirvana graced the cover. And the headline was: “Cobain: ‘Success Doesn’t Suck’”.

But I think it probably did.

Nobody needs to be examined all of the time by complete strangers, and yet that is what many of us are doing on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube. None of these things existed when Cobain was alive. What would he think of these things if he were still alive today? I think he would probably have mocked them and either totally eschewed them or made up fake identities so he could skulk around the zeitgeist unnoticed.

As I’ve mentioned many a time here, I am ragingly ambivalent about Facebook and all these applications that tell everyone what you’re doing. On the one hand, it connects you to people, which is, in general, a good thing. But it also encourages massive navel-gazing, which is not necessarily always the best use of your time.

I suppose blogs are the same way, though. If they’re not personal navel-gazing, they’re gazing at politicians’ or celebrities’ navels. It all comes out to cheap voyeurism that, in small doses, doesn’t appear to be a problem.

By the time my kids are old enough to get on Facebook, (and it isn’t that long) what will they do with their profiles? Will they tell everyone every detail of their day? (No wait, that’s Twitter. Whatever, you know what I mean.) Will they live their social life electronically, never leaving the couch? Frankly that scares me a little. Okay, a lot.

Again, I’m not trying to say that Facebook is BAD, it isn’t. Sometimes it’s the only adult contact I get all day. I guess it all comes down to moderation. How much time do you spend online versus the time you spend in person with real live people who have odors and opinions you can hear and quirks you can mock in person?

I’m just sayin’.

Question: Who is responsible for all this crap?

In keeping with my discussion about organizing and/or reducing the amount of STUFF we have, I came to a fairly unflattering conclusion today.

It's not my kids' fault they have so much stuff. It's mine.

DUH.

I mean, who is giving them the vast majority of their belongings? Me. Who spends the lion's share of the discretionary money in the household? Me. Who takes the kids to the birthday parties and dollar stores for all that (probably) pthalate-filled plastic crap? Me. Who is allowing these things to quietly reproduce while they sit in drawers unattended? Me. Okay, maybe not the last one, but you get my point.

I rail and rant and foam at the mouth about junk in our house, but I'm the one creating most of it! How can I teach my kids about valuing their things and being particular if I don't, and I'm not?

Nobody in this family is good at taking care of their stuff. I would venture to say that this is in part because we don't really have any good stuff. I mean, other than our computers, there aren't any valuable things in our house. Our TV is so old you can use it without a remote, our stereo is so old it has turntable and cassette options on the tuner, and over half of our furniture was either passed along to us (at a deep or full discount) or purchased at Ikea.

So maybe we don't care of our nice things because we just don't have nice things. But that's not the right lesson to be teaching our kids. People do more with much less. We are just numbed by our stuff. That doesn't seem right.

And I'd like to point out for the record that we don't even have THAT much stuff, compared to others in our socioeconomic demographic. I mean, every time I talk to my Dad, he complains about having too much stuff. And my sister's house is pretty full. And my Mom's house isn't sparse, but they do try to offload things at their annual community garage sale. People I know have full garages, albeit much neater, if you see what I'm saying.


The fact that we've moved so many times has cut down on our gross accumulation, but that doesn't mean we don't need to pare down. Stuff grows exponentially. I can go through this house any day of the week and fill a bag with stuff the kids (hopefully) will never notice are gone. Someone could go through my stuff and do the same, and I'd never know, though if I ever found out, my little proprietary hackles would be raised. "Hey, that's MY stuff!"

Ugh.

Holding a mirror up to oneself is not always flattering. But at least now I have a clearer picture of who the culprit is around here.

Comment: Urge to shop…gone

The holidays have come and gone, and with them, my desire to shop.

Say it ain’t so.

But it is so. So so.

I haven’t been to my beloved Target in weeks and although I have withdrawal pains, I just don’t feel like getting more stuff. Apparently I’m not alone. The consumer index is in la toilette and frankly it’s about damn time.

We are so stuck in the pursuit of stuff to make us like other people, stuff to make us different from other people, stuff to make us feel happy, stuff to make us feel powerful, stuff to make us not feel at all.

Ironically, I feel I need to buy a book about having too much stuff, so there is still a purchase in my near future. But I have Christmas money! It’s mad money from my Dad. Even though I’m old enough to give my own kids mad money, there’s something sweet about it still coming from my dear father. I’m pretty sure I’m going to spend it all on books. There’s a shock.

Anyway, the book is called “It’s All Too Much” and it’s about the incursion of stuff in our lives and how to offload some of it and feel better. It’s probably a whole book that basically tells you to throw your shit out or give it away to someone who could use it. But still, sucker consumer that I am, I want to own and read the book. I want, I want, I want. My sister in law got it as a gift from her mother, who is not into stuff; my sister in law is a fastidious housekeeper and organizer so I don’t really know why she was given the book in the first place. I mean, I could totally help her out there.

But seriously, I am going to get my hands on a copy soon, so I can see what the hubbub is about and encourage myself to get rid of more stuff. My husband doesn’t have much stuff, so he’s not a prime candidate for the book, with the sole exception being his enormous box we move from one place to another, perpetually sealed, but clung to nonetheless. Perhaps the book will help me with my children’s stuff.

Because what really enervates me is the stuff the kids have. I don’t mean the collections of rocks and little stapled papers, homemade books full of pencil-scrawled numbers. I love those. I’m talking about the board games they never play, the plastic birthday party crap they get in those stupid bags, toys they could care less about. But whenever I try to get rid of things, I get worried that I am getting rid of something more precious to my kids than I know. I mean, I’m not a mind reader. And certain things that don’t look like much to me are treasures to my kids.

In fact, I’ve noticed how comforted my son feels with his stuff. Most of it is colored pencils and markers and crayons and the above-mentioned collections, but still; he gets downright freaked out if he can’t find his things. But he has too many things, so he can’t keep track of them. And therein lies the paradox. Anxiety over keeping track of too much stuff. Solution? Offload.

But I’m nervous about getting rid of his stuff without consulting him; he’s old enough to be very aware of missing things and also, as I’ve learned from past experience, old enough to go through the things with me and cull what can be let go. But my son has a hard time letting go (can’t imagine where he gets that from); he tends to want whatever is in front of him. Is it sentimentality? Territoriality? Insecurity? Hey, kids, sounds like the human condition!

So we shall see what happens with the whole stuff stuff.