Penoptic

After I got to Leila's home in northern Maryland Monday (yeah, I'm a couple days behind--I'll try to catch up), I was forced to confront the most difficult physical manifestation of this cross-country move I'm doing. That's right: The sheer amount of stuff. I've never been one of those people who could pack light or get rid of things. I'm not a hoarder--I'll get rid of newspapers, (most) old magazines, clothes that don't fit. There are no jars in my apartment of my nail clippings or errant hairs. But when it comes to things like books, pictures, even kitschy old gifts, I just can't bring myself to divest myself. I keep thinking things like, So-and-so gave me that, it means something to me since so-and-so is now living thirty gazillion miles away. I also blame my mother in part for this, too. She used to get fed up with the state of my room (she called it "messy," I called it "organized chaos"--you know, the kind where noth...

I never realize exactly how settled I am in a place until I move from it. Suddenly, the small things I've bought out of convenience - the tool kit, the set of dishes, the photo albums, the filing cabinet - suddenly I have to put it all into neat little boxes, label them and send them off to some other place. It's only then that I realize that I have five sets of shelves than four feet high - for the kitchen, the laundry room, DVD and video storage, and two for books. This on top of the bookcase that's covered in books (six feet high, six feet long, one foot wide) and the small shelves that sit on top of my desk to provide extra storage space. It's only at this crucial moment that I actually realize exactly how many pairs of shoes I own. Only then that I see that buying endless picture frames from Ikea in an effort to get rid of the boxes of loose photos probably wasn't a very good idea, since the bubble wrap to pack them in will end up costing more than the frames t...