bookshelves and the wonders within April 8, 2008

I’ll be taking the slightly bigger one on the right, but not the one on the left.  I just gotta have -some- books.  Shelves for my journals.  I’ll also be taking those little drawers, which contain craft supplies and my stationery.

Forgive me if this post isn’t exactly sparkly.  I’m just writing to fill the time in a state of mind just before sleep.

Some of the titles I’ll be taking with me:

- Lichens of North America & Moss Gardening; it’ll be the most wonderful climate for it all.

- McSweeney’s back issues – It’s a good vault of short stories for occasional reading and inspiration.  I stopped subscribing a while ago, but there are still plenty of new ones to read.

- MY COMMMMICCCCS  Pretty much all of them.  Because I love them and am scared something bad will happen to them if they’re not in my direct care.  They’re just so much more fragile than books, and it’s not like you can find many of them at your local library.

- Tad Williams; Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn & Otherland series.  Whether he qualifies as literature or not, Tad Williams will always occupy a soft spot in my heart, as well as a place on my list of influences.  For better or worse.

- Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, along with Cryptonomicon.  You kind of either love him or hate him; I love him, in a way not unlike Tad Williams.  I like it and I don’t care what you think!  It’s a thick-ass, long-ass series.  None of the people I’ve recommended it to could quite finish the first book T_T

Some of the things I’ll be leaving:

- Most textbooks and school notebooks.  I like having them around for reference, but I’ll put them in storage with my mom or something, and if I need to know something, I’ll call her, or just pick one up on a visit home.

- Harry Potter series.  Cause they’re everywhere, and I’m not attached to my particular copies.

Okay, totally ready to go to sleep now.

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being):6 (average of the contents of my bookshelves)

Take It or Leave It? both!

soap dispenser April 6, 2008

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

hahahaha…  See, it’s sticking its tongue out at you.

I can’t count the number of friends that have fallen victim to my soap dispenser, even the ones that know better.  People who come out of the bathroom with soap on their shirts and smelling like Dr. Bronner’s.  It’s not a bad soap dispenser, and I didn’t intend it to be this way.  It’s just the way that Dr. Bronner’s soap is really liquidy and forms blockages easily that causes the soap to squirt in odd directions at high velocity if you aren’t really gentle.

When I realized that, I was thinking to put a little label on it that said “Be Gentle,” but I never got around to it, and it was kind of amusing to see who never really learned how to deal with it.  Call it a stupid tax (no offense Bakari, Aaron), and my own harmless practical joke.  Hey, it’s soap, how bad can that be?

I won’t miss it, but I will remember it.

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being): 1

Take It or Leave It? Leave It

silverware April 3, 2008

Washing my dishes was what got me to thinking about how accustomed I am to the objects I’ve lived with. I’ll be using different silverware in Portland. Washing different silverware. hm.

My forks, spoons, and knives are from my parents, one of the old sets of party silverware. It’s a bit heftier than what I think of as “flatware,” though it’s certainly not silver. Dinnerware? Whatever, this isn’t a catalogue.

I actually didn’t like this set when I was a kid. There were three sets, and this was the plainest, heavy and square. At that age, the more ornate, the better–these utensils were clearly made for peasants.

But by the time I needed silverware for my own apartment, my sensibilities had changed. I wanted this set because it was strong and simple. An amateur spoon-bender would not want to try bending these spoons. Even an expert spoon-bender might fail. In fact, these spoons are my makeshift household crowbars (which makes me think I should take one or two with me).

Attachment, on a scale of 1-10 (not at all – it’s part of my being): 4

Take It or Leave It? Leave it (except for one or two spoons)