Don't clean out your house

Author: MiriamPublished: Aug 09, 2005 at 9:28 pm 3 comments

When you move, just walk away and let some else sort out your possessions. You can bring pictures of your family with you, but forget everything else.

I just got rid of a prom dress. The owner of the dress has been married for eight years. Also LPs, since no one I know has an LP player. Then the clothes that fit me ten years or ten pounds ago--it made me wistful to let them go.

I also have many duplicates. Whenever I couldn't find something around the house, I ran out and bought another of whatever it was. Consequently I now have three hammers, a scissors in every room, three bottles of Elmer's Glue, and a pair of reading glasses in every room, plus one in my purse in case I forget to take them with me.

Only two staplers, but four toilet brushes. Also, two copies of Wuthering Heights, two copies of Pride and Prejudice, two Old Goriots, and three copies of Excellent Women by Barbara Pym. What's up with that? Well, I was never sure which books I actually owned and which belonged to the library. So I brought books home, figuring you never know when you'll need an extra copy of Excellent Women.

Also three copies of my own book, Distinguished African-American Aviators and Astronauts. Remember when that one topped the charts? The publisher actually gave me six. I gave three away to relatives who promised to read it, and got pissed off with other relatives who looked like they didn't really want to read it. I felt they weren't worthy.

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Article Author: Miriam

Miriam is a recovering librarian and sometime writer who wrote a book about African American aviators and astronauts cleverly entitled, "Distinguished African American Aviators and Astronauts." She's kind of stuck back in the twentieth century.

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Article comments

  • 1 - Bobby

    Aug 10, 2005 at 12:25 am

    So this is just an excuse to plug yr book, hmm

  • 2 - Victor Plenty

    Aug 10, 2005 at 1:04 am

    No, if it had been just an excuse to plug a book, she could have avoided mentioning the book in the post. Nobody would have known the main Amazon link was for her own book. Instead of taking that deceptive route, she openly told us a story that happened to include the book, risking cheap brainless insults from people with poor reading comprehension skills.

  • 3 - dietdoc

    Aug 10, 2005 at 6:41 am

    Miriam: I totally agree. Let someone ELSE do the moving. As a devoted pack rat, I never throw anything away. As a result, my aparment for the years 1997-2004 was a complete disaster. Everything from boxes - still unpacked from the previous move - and cases of old baseball cards to, yes, LPs and 3-4 computers that no longer worked. I sent me office manager, gave her the week "off" to do it and said "Clean it out. Don't tell me what you throw away."

    When I moved into new digs, I hardly missed a thing. She vows she threw away tons of useless debris but, as far as I can tell, nothing is missing. But, strangely, the clutter is gone.

    Magic? No, just someone who recognizes what is being used and what is not. Parting with a 80386 desktop (with a blown power supply and cobwebs) is such sweet sorrow.

    I enjoyed the post, thanks.

    Cheers,

    Ron

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