I once recieved a Christmas gift from a friend that gave me considerable pause. The first part, a gas station Snoopy glass, gave me great pleasure. The second thing in the box, a t-shirt with a stick figure that held a knife that dripped blood, made me wonder. The caption under the figure read, I Hate Waking Up. We were at lunch with a lot of people, all exchanging gifts, and nobody knew quite what to say to mine, which I hid away as soon as I could under my seat. I knew I'd never wear it, in the way that I don't have it in me to wear a t-shirt I recently saw that said, Fueled by GHB (the initials for the infamous date rape drug). My friend thought the shirt edgy, and I love edgy gifts. But I couldn't quite reconcile the impulse with what he knew about my past and his own muddled role in it so I stuffed it in my basement, in hopes that I would not see it any time soon.
To many people's horror, I throw all sorts of things away, having been encouraged by a feng-shui book many moons ago about clearing your clutter and clearing your life. I have cleared my clutter. Still waiting on the life part, but hope, you know. I have a pretty clean basement as that area represents the past. Even so, it's the repository for things that I cannot throw away. It's a creepy space to other people, even when it contained nothing. It looks, one of my friends said as she helped me move into my house, like a place where bad things have happened to someone. I saw her point, the bare lights and cement floor, the secret room with shelves to hold clothes and books and dolls. I spend a lot of time down there, organizing and culling my things, but I've never seen the shirt again. Sometimes when you hide something well, you can't even find it yourself.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"The first need of a free people is to define their own terms. " Stokely Carmichael
Cocktail Hour
Drinking movie suggestion: Factotum
Benedictions and Maledictions
Thanks so much to everyone for all the sweet compliments on my hair! I owe anything that works to my beautiful friend Stacey, a stylist on par with Ken Paves any day! Any problems I attribute to my propensity for thoughtless harsh brushing. However, I am working on it as well as more frequent conditioning.
8 comments:
Basements are great. I just put up my '07 Women of Curling Nude Calendar on the back of the door in my basement fruit cellar. I know it's going to be a great year for canning!
It's good to remove the clutter, but how many times have I curswed myself for throwing out records, magazines and present of the past. Best to have a deep, dark basement where you can lose things that you might want to recall years later.
Hi Michelle, I love the part about hiding things so well that you can't even find it yourself . . . I know I have done that and I wonder now if it is a case of absentmindedness or denial? Anyway, you reminded me about the 'basement' thing and right now, my basement is full of my son's and daughter's belongings . . . the past, my past and soon to be future unless we clear it out! Yikes! Been there done that sort of thing.
Thanks - we do need to catch up one day! Miss you.
Is the picture of you in front of the place where you used to guard lives? Or is it hopefully a picture of you in front of the airport? *sigh* looks like a swiming pool to me.
Only people who have never been close to dying themselves hate waking up so that was an inconsiderate gift one bought because he liked it for himself, personally as shitty as the world can be I have chosen to wake up breathing still, find it and regift it back to him, he will enjoy the edginess of it then.
feng-shui my ass. You are just a neat freak who lives by the rule if I haven't touched it in X amount of time it is of no value to me, come to my house and feng-shui my wifes stuff which fills every space; be it shelf, table or non walkway floor, including the basement and garage.
My stuff, momentos and shit are in a cabinet in the computer room the top is glass in so i can see it and the bottom is drawers which i haven't the faintest idea of their contents. I constantly give shit away that someone says "hey are using that, it's cool." "here have it"
Now get back here so i can finish what I started which is feng-shuing the shit out of your life, or more simply put getting the shit out of the way so your back pack is a little lighter to carry.
The mind of the monkey is in your possesion and it has control over the other thirteen masks most of which you will never see and all of which I will never see again, that is clearing the clutter from ones life. Knowing there are masks out there that you can have other people wear for you.
Not hiding it in a basement where it "looks like a place where bad things happened to someone" God, that is like listening to Glen Gould ruin Bach concerto's...absolutely torturous because Bach got it right and Gould thought he could get it better, news for you, he didn't, and the basement had it right until you put the negative juju in it.
so if you hid that fucked up shirt so well that you can't find it then look until you do find it and get rid of it just like i am getting rid of the Gould CD's because he is ruining something that was done pefectly without his help.
besides it is still warm here with no snow and will stay that way unti I want it different or you get in that car you wrongly named snowball and it makes it snow by driving around in it. That's when the snow war begins so let's get it on girlie with the snow bringer, let's see who has it. Come Home! godamn it.
now my code letters say vexwe hmmmmmmmmmmmm have to ponder whom is vexing who
I have trouble when I put things away for safe keeping because I can never remember where I put them and it takes me days to find it again. That gift you received sounds really creepy. I don't even think I would have hid it away. I probably would have got home and thrown it out.
I unfortunately have lots of clutter. I usually do a spring cleaning and get rid of most of it but I am such a pack rat. I think I'll clear out my clutter sooner than spring... perhaps that is why I am in such a funk...
I've seen plenty of hand-drawn stick figures with knives in their heads or back with the caption, "My teacher." My students can be so noncreative at times.
Fuck the pedals.
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