By extension, obsession with brand names could be described as "orthorexia of things".
I mean, everything is death anxiety.
Death and castration anxiety.
She's Japanese. Sontag famously called (one of the) Japanese aesthetics "fascist." I say "one" because there is a lot, maybe the majority, of Japanese culture/Buddhism that is not influenced by Zen and is very busy, cluttered, rococo. But the Zen influence is always there, and always/already making a comeback/revival as a conservative reaction.
Of course, not only Japanese. I have been haunted for decades by the dialectic between Malevich's "Black Spot" and Kandinsky's "Inside the Black Spot"
As far as personal style goes, you would be lucky to find a path to walk through my place. Not only is floor space covered, but the stacks keep rising. Is there an opposite of "anal retentive?"
Also, the snappy ripostes to Kondo-san's [/bob] newest book seem to reflect a certain hypersensitivity among Internet feminists to any implication that the ways they waste their time, however feminist, may be kind of stupid.
Hot take!
I'm sorry, throw away my books?
Yeah, no.
I also fucking missed recycling again, after a week in which Amazon dedicated 30% of its workforce to us. They come by at fucking 6 o'clock, and if put out the night before, the cats and kids spread it everywhere.
My 10 year old has death anxiety. Like, out of nowhere burst out weeping death anxiety. Molly has been pointing out that his great grandpa is still alive at 100. I've been repeating the Epicurean argument about the time before you were born. You might think this is a weird strategy, but we have philosophical conversations all the time now. Yesterday he asked me if mathematics is something we invented, why is it that we don't know all of it immediately.
6: Seriously, bro. Throwing away a screwdriver because it fails to "spark joy" is fucking stupid.
10: Isn't there some provision in her system for objects that are useful?
If you put the screwdriver across the terminals of your car battery, it will spark something.
12: That may not be joy, but it's close enough for me.
There is also I think an important difference between hoarders and "amassers." Hoarders accumulate because they think they may need or use things.
Amassers accumulate because they can, it is collecting gone too far. Amassing is characteristically a lower-middle-class phenomenon, sign of desperation and insecurity.
Yesterday he asked me if mathematics is something we invented, why is it that we don't know all of it immediately.
Nothing invented is known immediately. That much seems to be almost definitional.
10: That's why you need the cute pink kind of screwdrivers they sell for gurlz. (My two little sets of Allen wrenches do definitely bring me more joy than regular screwdrivers, but I'm still not going to play along with this.)
11: I have not read the book, and perhaps the story is presented as an experience from which the author learned, but apparently she threw away a screwdriver for not bringing her joy and later broke a "favorite ruler" by employing it as a screwdriver.
My son is struggling with the category of "aliens". He has trouble with the idea that we have a label for something about which we know nothing, not even whether they exist.
Just explain to him that aliens are like love.
I want to know what aliens are
I want you to show me
My son seemed to be suffering from death anxiety when he announced that he would have enough time to finish his homework after he died. but, it turned he meant died inside a video game he was playing at the moment.
Yesterday my son gave his report at school on Bill Gates, inventor of the Windows computer and the X-Box.
23: You should raise him to be Patrick Swayze in "Roadhouse".
23: That's hilarious.
But "I'll have time to do my homework after I die" (apart from the video game reality) doesn't sound to me like a kid suffering from death anxiety. It sounds to me like a smartass.
24: If my son ever does the same, I'm disowning him.
There is also I think an important difference between hoarders and "amassers." Hoarders accumulate because they think they may need or use things.
And the opposite of hoarders are these people who appear in articles in the New York Times Magazine, who don't accumulate because they realize they have enough money to buy something if they ever need it.
I haven't read Konmari, but the drive for total order in the home was something I saw a lot in some Japanese women who didn't have control in any other sphere. They had the combination of Japanese perfectionism - the idea that there's only one correct way to do something, and you keep practicing until you can do it perfectly - with an absolute commitment to tidiness and cleanliness. Not so much decluttering; as Bob says, minimalism is only one (minority) Japanese aesthetic, and they didn't see anything wrong with accumulating stuff. But it all had to be in its proper place, either displayed or stored in exactly the right way. For those with children, you got the same energy poured into their education, too.
So yeah, going back to Heebie's point, if anorexia is about control of your own body when you feel powerless about other aspects of your life, then decluttering as obsessive control of your living environment makes sense.
I'm far nearer to the pathological-hoarder end of the spectrum than to object-anorexia end of the spectrum. While there are things that I hold on to because of sentimental value or out of a belief that they may someday become useful, most of my clutter really is stuff that could be thrown away. And the main reason I haven't purged all that stuff is that clutter and disorder simply do not bother me. Not one bit.
4
Not only is floor space covered, but the stacks keep rising. Is there an opposite of "anal retentive?"
Freud called it "anal expulsive," logically enough, but I don't know how well that dichotomy applies here.
Coincidentally, Cassandane sent me this link yesterday, about "quick and easy" decluttering. It's not worth picking a fight with her over, but the more I think about it, the more it seems aggressively useless.
1, 2, 5, 7: I'm 90 percent sure we don't have any of these, and if we do it's just one or two, already repurposed. E.g. unmatched socks and old t-shirts being used as rags.
4, 6, 8, 9: I'd be happy to get rid of them. Hell, I'd be happy to throw them away the day they enter the house and avoid acquiring them to begin with. Guess what, I'm not the one who did so. (Maybe I should acquire some of that stuff more, but given that I don't, and sometimes I try to cull it and she resists, I feel just a little justified in making it her problem.)
10: We use three different sets of plates, the biggest of them is only six plates, and at least one of each is chipped or otherwise damaged. If we throw away all the chipped ones we'd always have to mix and match sets when we have guests. I guess we could go out and buy another six to match the biggest set, but that would be pretty draconian.
So we're left with DVDs. Fair enough, we could free up a small bookshelf by throwing out our DVD collection. That suddenly seems like a fraught project.
But besides that, none of this seems to me like the kind of clutter that bugs us. The stuff that bugs us is paperwork we aren't sure we need, or stuff we definitely need but it's bulky, or stuff we need seasonally and don't have a good place for the rest of the time. Dry pens and even unnecessary baking supplies aren't why we can't close the closet door. Getting rid of low-hanging fruit like that might feel good but doesn't actually help.
18 - in re: Aliens. We have names for plenty of things that we know nothing about, even whether they exist: spirits, angels, devils, god/gods, souls... What's special about aliens.
To discard the stuff we've acquired is to murder the version of ourselves we envision using it.This is melodramatic, but kind of true. I feel that way about all the old student stuff I've thrown out, but it feels like euthanising by always-doomed academic career rather than murder. I have always felt better after throwing stuff out.
That they come from outer space.
The list in 32 seems pretty solid. On the chipped plates, chipped stuff drives me crazy, but I could see keeping it if it didn't bother you.
My 10 year old has death anxiety. Like, out of nowhere burst out weeping death anxiety. Molly has been pointing out that his great grandpa is still alive at 100. I've been repeating the Epicurean argument about the time before you were born. You might think this is a weird strategy, but we have philosophical conversations all the time now. Yesterday he asked me if mathematics is something we invented, why is it that we don't know all of it immediately.
Awesome. He's living out that moment from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.
The biggest obstacle to reducing clutter for me is junk mail. Not catalogs so much--those are easy to toss in the recycling bin. The truly evil stuff is the credit card application offers. You don't want to just recycle those, because an identity thief could get their hands on them and wreak havoc. So those have to be shredded, which takes a little extra time and effort, and most of the time I can't be bothered, so clutter ensues.
The only thing in that list that makes any sense for me is DVDs, and getting rid of the DVDs without getting rid of the bookcases they're stored in would not achieve anything. And besides, they bring me joy.
I have one chipped bowl, but I need it, as I only have a handful of large bowls suitable for everyday use. I could buy a new set of bowls, I guess, but that hardly seems like decluttering.
I was musing recently about how I lived during my 20s. I did the absolute bare minimum to maintain my apartment - scooped the kitty litter semi-frequently, sort of sorted mail, avoided doing laundry, avoided using many dishes, etc.
Things I wonder: if I lived alone, would I revert back instantly, having been trained by Jammies for the past ten years? Would it feel like an imposition to have minor daily tasks, the way it used to, or would it seem so much easier than all the daily crap I'm subject to, now?
Am I permanently altered in my willingness to do tedious house shit, or am I applying the same standard of cleanliness to a much more chaotic situation?
Has someone proposed a theory for why decluttering has become a "thing" at this particular time? I don't recall seeing books and articles and etc. about it until the last few years.
Living in a bare bones apartment now, the absence of tedious house shit is a recurring joy, such that I think I'll consciously resist change to a different lifestyle.
More people forced to downsize by economics? More people clearing out the house of aging relatives?
More people clearing out the house of aging relatives?
Just change the locks while they're out.
41 -- it probably has something to do with the tech aesthetic.* Someone here (maybe one of the LKs) was saying that aspirational types now look down on a house that's cluttered with books OR toys. You're supposed to have everything on a sleek computer and a few pieces of perfect living room furniture and a huge perfect kitchen and nothing else. Or something. I actually am not pro-clutter but I do believe in books.
*alternate theory -- collapse of middle class plus housing trends mean that if you're uncool and middle class you live in a tract home McMansion in the suburbs that's all about size, if you're cool and middle class, you live in a tiny space in the city and therefore have to be soignee and defiant about your small space and small-space lifestyle.
You don't want to just recycle those, because an identity thief could get their hands on them and wreak havoc.
Do you genuinely worry about that? I figure someone could just apply for credit under my name with or without the card applications, so it's not worth taking special care.
Young people can afford less space?
I have to do the clearing out job next month.
We (really more me) are on a massive decluttering binge at the moment. Partly because my wife would really like us to have less visible stuff -- I think she'd like to live in a minimalist show-house -- and partly because I'm skint, and ebaying stuff I'm not likely to use any time soon is a pretty useful way to generate cash that I can spend on 'toys'.*
I do quite like it. I suspect I have minor hoarding tendencies, but they are minor enough that if I lived in a house with a garage, an attic, or even a single decent sized cupboard, all of my clutter and junk would be out of sight.
* new smaller guitar amp.
47 is the position I came around to. I used to care, but stopped.
36: Eh, depends on details. As for plates, one is cracked in multiple pieces and glued back together. I also said "or otherwise damaged" - two plates of a four-plate set aren't chipped, but are very scratched up across the middle. And in our newest and nicest set of plates, two of the six plates have minor chips on the edges. So now that I mention it we probably should get rid of the glued one, but we'd really notice the loss of all the damaged ones.
I agree that the list is solid, but it (a) doesn't apply to our house in particular much, and (b) wouldn't help with clutter-as-a-practical-problem much.
The DVD collection seems fraught. Now that I think of it, I don't know why I have one at all. I have almost never rewatched DVDs (I'm sure some people do, nothing wrong with that, but it's not for me), so buying them at all seems weird as opposed to renting. (Oh yeah, I finally remembered, they have extra features. Still probably not worth the money and clutter.) Buying TV season box sets made sense at one point, because that's a lot of stuff to rent, but now there's Netflix and stuff.
I guess we should save the more child-appropriate ones for when Atossa is old enough have a preference, but could give a lot of the rest away easily.
46.last describes me, although I haven't worried about being cool in a while. If we were living in the houses Cassandane or I grew up in, all this clutter could expand until it filled a barn. But then we couldn't walk to five nice restaurants and 20 middling ones.
My personal spaces are a mess but decluttering is arguably a big part of my job. I bet many of my coworkers who struggle to manage files have cleaner homes than mine.
Decluttering as a thing:
- under the aesthetic aspect, it's exactly like dieting as a thing to sell. Also goes along with the boom in yoga, mindfulness, and health as consumer good generally.
- Tigre is right (I remember that discussion; I think it was heebie who talked about her friend finding their house full of books distasteful) about the effort to make the physical world seem more like one's Macbook.
- the shaming treadmill trying to find new things to shame women for and distract them from serious problems.
Aside: nice guitar for ttaM. What amp are you getting/replacing?
I'm far nearer to the pathological-hoarder end of the spectrum than to object-anorexia end of the spectrum. While there are things that I hold on to because of sentimental value or out of a belief that they may someday become useful, most of my clutter really is stuff that could be thrown away. And the main reason I haven't purged all that stuff is that clutter and disorder simply do not bother me. Not one bit.
That describes me fairly accurately though clutter does, eventually bother me (but, by that point the bother from the clutter is still less than the effort it would take to de-clutter). Though the biggest reason I don't get rid of something is a combination of (a) it being difficult to make the final decision to get rid of something rather than just deciding to hold onto it for a little bit longer and (b) wanting to dispose of things properly -- recycle what can be recycled and give away things that could be used by somebody else.
The only furniture you need is a single smooth stone that reminds you of your mother.
Thirding the agreement with Tigre's 46; we are trying to be 46.last in a small house. I am real willing to put stuff out on the curb or pack it away in the attic.
In the past year or so, I've stopped being willing to live with chipped or glued plates. All my plates are mismatched, so I can readily go out for a pretty new one without being concerned about a set. Butcept, I can feel a new desire for a matched table slowly approaching. I don't actually have it yet, but I bet that in two or three years, I'll want a table of matched plates.
I've never had matching coffee mugs (rather than random things with words on them), and would kind of like them. But there wouldn't be any point without throwing out the old mugs, which seems wasteful.
I sent 56 to my sister, but there's a good chance she'll implement move of it by this evening.
LB, in your city, there's an excellent chance that if you put your mismatched mugs out on the curb, they'd find new owners and keep getting used. That wouldn't be wasteful.
Chairs and couches slowly cripple us and should go. I'd like to replace my bed with a nest of dried grass and animal hides.
58: serious question: why? Coffee mugs are the only kitchen things we have that aren't matching--we have a random* assortment, just like you--but I can't imagine why we would want them to match. Plates, or flatware or regular glasses, I think matching is overrated, but ok I get it. What's the point of matching coffee mugs?
* not actually random.
We have matching coffee mugs. Not a full set, but like four of one kind, four of another, etc. My work coffee mug is one I have been using since I was given it in 1998. I clean it once a month or less. It's really filthy.
I mean, I guess we technically do have a matching set of 4 or maybe 6 coffee mugs, but they are at the back of the cabinet and only used when other are dirty, because the non matching ones are so much better. I don't understand the appeal of matching.
We got to "matching" plates by using all white. Serving dishes and coffee cups/saucers can be not white so there is color & pattern on the table in addition to the tablecloth. Also benefit that all dishes go with all tablecloths.
It is a bit strange now that I think about it that we've never extended the non-white exception to tea cups/saucers ... odd.
Ooh, cups and glasses and mugs are another type of thing I'd love to declutter. We only have enough room in our cabinet for them by stacking them on top of each other. Unfortunately, the only one that's actually cracked was a gift, and even worse, was handmade. IMO, the mugs with metal text on them should be the next to go because they're less useful than the rest because they can't go in the microwave, but that metal text is her law school logo, and we can't get rid of souvenirs. Many others are souvenirs too, and Heaven forbid we throw out a souvenir of Brew at the Zoo 2013.
This thread touches a nerve. Although, again, I suppose I can get things moving and if she doesn't follow my example it's her fault. The matching mugs would be a good place to start, even if they are a set with some of the plates and bowls. I need to be the change I want to see in my house.
Conversely, I expect Atossa to break our extra stuff when she gets a few years older. Maybe I should wait a few years to declutter so she gets the chance to do so...
63: I don't have a rational basis for it, but in other people's houses, I find that I notice attractive matching coffee mugs and I like the way it looks. (Our dishes have matching cup & saucers, but I don't like drinking out of them in the morning.)
I find that coffee tastes better out of little cups and that saucers are required because it's hard not to spill with such little cups. But I never drink coffee that way because of all the effort to refill it about six times to get enough caffeine to stave off the headache.
I'm just saying goodbye to a colleague from Japan, but I'm not about to ask her about this kind of stuff.
The Wikipedia entry on "saucers" contains this nugget that was news to me:
The saucer also provides a convenient place for a damp spoon, as might be used to stir the drink in the cup in order to mix sweeteners or creamers into tea or coffee. Some people pour the hot tea or coffee from the cup into the saucer; the increased surface area of the liquid exposed to the air increases the rate at which it cools, allowing the drinker to consume the beverage quickly after preparation.
I moved to a small house and now throw a lot of stuff away or put it in the basement. I really don't have much storage space at all. books don't count. records wouldn't count if that was still a thing.
It is a good feeling to throw stuff out.
I only have the kids two weekends and one week a month so they don't keep much of their stuff at my place.
I thought about giving her some money and asking her to send back Pokemon stuff that you can't get here, but that seemed weird.
71: There is a phrase in Texas, to say something is "saucered and blowed", meaning it's done being prepared and is ready to go, with that exact origin.
Plus, if she said yes, it would mean clutter.
We have no mugs, not a single one. Also no microwave.
The whole "object of joy" thing has never resonated with me because AB & I basically don't buy things that don't give us joy in the first place. We both have a strong sense of design (hers arguably stronger than mine), and so every purchase is considered along that axis first. And the exceptions are things that we get despite the aesthetics because we need them. Like right now, we have a serving spoon that was a gift that does not bring us joy, but it is also the only serving spoon of that size that we own, and probably gets used 3+ times per week.
I'm not saying there's no clutter--not at all--but that her operating principle isn't really applicable.
Ooh, cups and glasses and mugs are another type of thing I'd love to declutter. We only have enough room in our cabinet for them by stacking them on top of each other
Actually, this is about the only area where I feel that I could reasonably declutter (other than losing the old flatpanel TV I can't sell for any material amount money but refuse to throw away). I've got something like two dozen sherry glasses I inherited from my parents' own decluttering. What the hell am I going to do with all those? I can barely fit that many people into my flat, let alone afford to ply them with sherry.
You don't need to ask (not that you would). You can just assume she folds her underwear like this.
Was it saiselgY who pointed out that the traditional description of the Senate as "the cooling saucer of democracy" made it evident how undesirable it is?
73: I am sure she will be very polite about locating and sending you your Pikachu costume. It's thoughtful to give measurements when asking.
78: You can send us two sherry glasses. We broke ours during the sleep-deprivation era.
I could definitely use 2 dozen sherry glasses.
58: Soon you can pack up those mugs and send them off to college with your children. That's basically the plan for some of the kitchen stuff we're not in love with. I mean, that's farther off for us than for you, but the point is that the one stack of plates that I'd just as soon get rid of (but use all the time; they have a function/role) can stay for a few years, and that's one less thing for Iris to have to buy (or do without) when she leaves home. And when she leaves home, we get to add something nice to our lives.
Actually, where I really want to declutter is the basement. We have a designated yard sale pile, but we've never once had a yard sale. We take stuff to Goodwill all the time, but these are things that I'd like to see some cash from, and our basement is such that the pile isn't a major source of displeasure. But maybe we should set a Memorial Day deadline: sell or give away, but kill the pile.
Pack dq's box with twelve dozen liquor jugs.
As several people have mentioned, it's the process of actually getting rid of things I don't want that I find most difficult. If I could walk around my house with a magic wand and just point it at anything I wanted to make disappear, I'd be decluttered tomorrow. (I'd be in a lot of trouble, because I'd mostly be pointing it at my wife's things, but it would be worth it.) But without that magic wand, I'm stuck with the choice of actually throwing things away (which seems terrible given that the "clutter" is mostly functional or potentially useful (to someone), and sometimes expensive things), or trying to either give away or sell things, both of which involve just enough time and effort so as to make them basically never happen. And I think my wife has this problem 2x--she's even more reluctant than I am to throw away anything that someone else might want, and even less likely to ever spend any time disposing of things in any manner other than throwing them away. (Hence, most of the clutter is hers.) I'm not sure how to fix this.
79: It's been so long since the sexual harassment training.
The whole "object of joy" thing has never resonated with me because AB & I basically don't buy things that don't give us joy in the first place
It doesn't resonate with me for the exact opposite reason.
86: just put in in the fucking bin. You committed the crime when you bought it.
in my life, souvenirs have to be pretty darned nice to justify taking up limited space.
Re: 54
I bought a Yamaha THR10, which is great. To replace two older headphone/modeller things. I still have a big 60s (JTM45/Superlead 50 type) but I never use it, so that will go soon, too.
That is a lovely guitar.
86 sounds like me and Cassandane too. But the four of us should try to remember that there's actually a lot more supply than demand for a lot of stuff. This thread talks about oversupply of books, particularly parsi's 40 and 104, and I assume the same could be said of kitchen utensils and electronic gadgets.
OT: Facing death*, Drum has no more fucks to give.
*no new news, just his assisted suicide article in which he says he doesn't expect to ever receive a SSI check, and not because Pete Petersen says the program's in crisis.
I say don't throw any of it away. Rent a storage locker/bin/whatever somewhere for six months or something and just move it all there temporarily to save space in the house. Then six months later when you've forgotten about all of it anyway just abandon it and let the storage people auction it off or something. That way you get it out of your house but don't actually miss it since you're just storing it somewhere, and then when it's been gone long enough that you've kind of forgotten about it anyway, or replaced whatever in it you actually had a use for with something better, it just disappears without any actual effort on your part.
Conversely, I expect Atossa to break our extra stuff when she gets a few years older. Maybe I should wait a few years to declutter so she gets the chance to do so...
Had I to do it over again, I would get some solid restaurant china—preferably pieces from funky old restaurants or the Forest Service (they had china! it's really cool!), but standard stuff would do—and use it at least until the real plate-breaking age passed. As it is, we've started using my grandparents' tableware, because there's so little of the other left.
just his assisted suicide article in which he says he doesn't expect to ever receive a SSI check
I had read his blog post on the subject but hadn't read the longer article and it's very good (as you would expect) and intense.
I'm stuck with the choice of actually throwing things away (which seems terrible given that the "clutter" is mostly functional or potentially useful (to someone), and sometimes expensive things), or trying to either give away or sell things, both of which involve just enough time and effort so as to make them basically never happen.
I figure that Goodwill is specifically well-equipped to deal with this problem, since they know what people actually will buy, and since they serve this exact function for tons of their donors. If I feel guilty that I am making them weed through my stuff to separate the crap from the chaff, I can donate money to compensate.
Crap is chaff. Keep the wheat, Goodwill!
Most of our clutter comes from things we use frequently and so can't purge - nail clippers, books one is in the middle of reading, slippers, extra jackets, mail that requires a phone call during business hours to resolve, gloves, etc. It just don't have a home, or at least a convenient one. I think if we every buy instead of rent the place will end up looking like the compactified inside of the Container Store supply truck.
I like the orthorexia/anorexia analogy. I enjoyed one of the slightly exploitative shows about hoarders. The one I watched somehow managed to convey that household junk embodied hopes about the future or memories of the past for people whose present was kind of messed up.
The connection between stuff and emotional life makes both buying and losing things a little fraught. Denying the connection is a mistake, but giving in completely and mourning the lost you who thought that unicorn dishtowels were nice is also an error. It's a tricky balancing act. My ex mocked my fondness for a few childhood things, probably because she didn't much like my parents.
From the link in 98:
In the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, 1 in 28 deaths now comes via doctor-assisted suicide. That's up 200 percent in the past decade, largely because the rules are so lenient. All you have to do is claim unbearable suffering, which in practice can mean that you're just tired of living.
HOLY SHIT.
The worst of my clutter is electronic crap that doesn't work anymore. I want to get rid of it, but feel bad about throwing it away, because e-waste, but actually dealing with it as e-waste would be extraordinarily burdensome.
At least I recently managed to get rid of my dead-battery collection, as some environmental group was doing a thing.
My uncle has multiple myeloma, and was just one of the first to undergo an experimental procedure that has previously been successful on other types of cancer. (They train the b-cells to eradicate the t-cells, or maybe the other way around, is how it was explained to me.) He was diagnosed with mm in 2006, so he was further along than kd. Anyway, it worked spectacularly well and he's in complete remission, although without a functional immune system (which he had already basically lost due to mm and had been getting IGF infusions, which he can still get.) Till now, remission from mm has been considered impossible. It's been considered a longterm, treatable cancer.
KD already had a bone marrow transplant, and I don't know if that affects his eligibility for this procedure. But if it does not, his future may not be as grim as he thinks.
" there's actually a lot more supply than demand for a lot of stuff. This thread talks about oversupply of books, particularly parsi's 40 and 104, and I assume the same could be said of kitchen utensils and electronic gadgets."
this is also true for clothes. most donated clothes are used for recycling.
To 103, there was a New Yorker article on euthanasia for mental illness in Belgium this summer -- I don't have the link handy, but reading it was like watching a horror movie. It was certainly biased in favor of the surviving family of one woman who elected euthanasia, but still. The idea of getting a panel of doctors to agree that you're unworthy of life...
BTW, I don't wasn't this to sound like we're clutter-free; our house is cluttered as shit. But 40% of that is kid-related, 40% is daily clutter (unsorted mail, reading material, shoes) that we (especially me) are bad at staying on top of, and the remainder is the sort of stuff that decluttering would target, and I'm not sure very much of it is stuff we'd be happier without.
Our house was absolutely tidier pre-kid, which is obvious, but still important to remember. When it was just me and AB, things were much closer to where we'd prefer.
79: Who folds underwear?* It's the least fold-worthy item of clothing there is after socks. Stuff them in the drawer and be done with it.
*Apart from Japanese people, who are all about folding stuff. A foldy people, the Japanese.
Heaven forbid we throw out a souvenir of Brew at the Zoo 2013
I saw a tip saying to put potential outgoing clutter by the front door for a week. If it still looks like a precious memory after the week, no harm done, put it back on the shelf. But a lot of it will lose its sheen when sitting in a box by the door. And then it is already in a box by the door!
You guys don't have the "put it on the curb" option? We must get more foot traffic (or homeless people). Anything placed on the curb is gone by the next morning. It is gone within a couple hours if we also post in Craiglist's Free section (on curb at ## and Letter, jenky-ass collection of mugs, will take down ad when picked up). We might be giving up some cash, but we know it is taken by someone who wants it bad enough to pick it up. Disposal effort is near zero. (I get that this wouldn't work for e-waste.)
||
(sub)Tropical Storm Alex!
Yay, Alex!
All the way to Greenland!
|>
You guys don't have the "put it on the curb" option?
We do. Sometimes stuff vanishes when we do that, but not always. I guess I could try putting up a Craigslist ad about it next time, I never thought of that.
We once put a small sofa out on Vine just off it's intersection with Shattuck in Berkeley and within minutes there were two people sitting on it, coffee cups and CB pastries in hand, chatting away for the time it took their companion to go fetch a borrowed pickup truck and take it away. It was very sweet. That was an excellent apartment.
A foldy people, the Japanese.
Racist.
The idea of getting a panel of doctors to agree that you're unworthy of life...
The difference between "getting a panel of doctors to agree with you that you are badly off enough that your life is genuinely (to you) not worth living" and "getting a panel of doctors to agree that you are unworthy of life" is pretty freaking huge...
Try getting a panel of doctors to agree on a research plan.
I bet if you say "Ok, before we get started I think we just need to establish which of you is the best at research and the most important..." right at the beginning you can pretty much take the next week off from work.
It doesn't work if you are that obvious about it
I think you may have a more generous view of humanity than I do.
116 seems to be signaling that you have a lot more to say on this topic and would welcome the chance to be asked to elaborate. Or perhaps you don't need to be asked! Perhaps you don't need to be asked, indeed. But perhaps you do. It is all very interesting.
96 is brilliant advice which I will remember.
I really do not feel at home in a starkly minimalist environment. Makes me think I need to do something about my hair (pull it back into a chignon [sleek and chic!], or something).
I would rather inhabit a space with a bit of comfortable clutter, I suppose. Problem is, once you allow any amount of clutter, it's really hard to keep it under control, and 'comfortable' can very quickly become untidy and then uncomfortably messy. Every once in a while, I go on a decluttering spree, and purge all kinds of stuff, and feel virtuous about filling up several bags to donate to the Goodwill. And then the stuff starts to pile up again ...
I'm sure I could use some decluttering tips, but I absolutely refuse to feel guilty about the way I store my socks, or about hanging on to 'joyless' items that are actually useful (e.g., screwdrivers).
56 is awesome.
123 is me. After I purge stuff my environment looks bare rather than 'minimal' (whatever that means) and I'm happy enough with that.
Cynical me feels like minimalism programs are ploys to get people to throw out their stuff so they have to buy more when the stuff they use a lot wears out or they need the stuff they've thrown out. There was that whole "just own 30 pieces of clothing" movement about 5 years ago, where we were supposed to just own a few white slouchy t-shirts, black jeggings, and a silk blazer, or something like that.*
I tend towards hoarder tendencies, which is exacerbated by the fact my boyfriend and I have all our stuff in a smallish bedroom, which is basically unusable except as a sleeping/dressing room. If we had our own 1-bedroom apt I'm not sure I would count has having too much stuff. I have the same problem with credit card offers, bureaucratic documents (though after having been audited by the IRS I'm glad I am a compulsive document and receipt saver), and the scourge of everything, academic detritus (hand-outs, notes from talks that are maybe interesting but unrelated to my work, binders of articles from before I stopped printing, etc.).
*Whereas I still own and regularly wear clothes from the 90s, and not the stuff that came back in fashion
113, 115: Hey now, there's nothing wrong with being foldy.
My roommate has a set of matching coffee mugs, and I have a motley assortment of mugs. My mother has multiple sets of matching coffee cups of various levels of formality, all of which she uses in entertaining. She also has several kitchens worth of specific kitchen utensils, all of which get used more or less. I agree that you should avoid single-purpose items if it's something you don't do frequently and there's a way to do it with a more generic tool, but there are kitchen appliances, or clothes, or other things you only use once every few years but when you do use them, you really do need them.
IKEA sells a 6 piece set of matching plates, salad plates and bowls for $15, so it's really easy to get matching plate if you're down for the low-end Swedish modern aesthetic.
I also hang on to things I want to get rid of, because it pains me to just throw them out but I'm too lazy to put the energy into figuring out how to get rid of them in a more useful way. I also have a giant overflowing rag bin, so turning old clothes into rags now really feels like a cop-out.
My boyfriend's father is significantly impaired from a stroke several years ago, and now spends his time watching TV and online shopping. He has no impulse control, no sense of money or time (e.g. he can't tell how much time has passed between ordering something and it arriving, so he'll purchase the same thing multiple times in a row), and he has these sorts of manic periods of unrealistic optimism. He'll order 6 pie tins (no one in the family bakes) + a 12 pack of pie crusts, a rice cooker, a george forman grill, and some hiking boots. He owns about 6 different tablets of various sorts, every gadget ever sold on late night TV, etc. His parents had an abusive relationship before stroke, and dynamics haven't improved all that much, so my bf's mother is unwilling to rein in the shopping.* She tries to return what she can, but for various reasons she's not amazing at doing things like that, so they just pile up in their house. This drives me absolutely nuts for all sorts of reasons, but it is so not my business so I'll just complain about it to a bunch of people I've never met online.
*After the stroke, he was told to give up smoking, but he bullied his wife into buying him cigarettes. He had a massive heart attack about a month ago, probably not unrelated to his chain smoking, and now he's on a "low-sodium" diet, which involves having his wife cook salt-encrusted fish and getting him Bic Macs several times a week.
After the stroke, he was told to give up smoking, but he bullied his wife into buying him cigarettes. He had a massive heart attack about a month ago, probably not unrelated to his chain smoking, and now he's on a "low-sodium" diet, which involves having his wife cook salt-encrusted fish and getting him Bic Macs several times a week.
So is she just straight-up trying to kill him, or what?
129
He's slowly committing suicide, which she doesn't want but is actively abetting him. Her rationale is that his life is sucks so she doesn't want to deny him the few pleasures he has left (smoking, fatty salty foods, and compulsive shopping). If he had
It sounds like the compulsive shopping isn't actually a pleasure because he can't remember buying things.
Well, he probably doesn't remember smoking the cigarettes either.
125.1: And thats why I don't notice lovely magazine spreads encouraging us to "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without".
Who folds underwear?* It's the least fold-worthy item of clothing there is after socks. Stuff them in the drawer and be done with it.
I can remember when my mother used to iron underwear. And handkerchiefs. To be fair she stopped doing it at some point.
"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful," quoth Ruskin. So stuff it to the gunwales with Arts and Crafts knick-knacks. Also I agree with the person up thread who said they might take her books from her cold dead hands, or words to that effect. People who don't like being surrounded by books are yahoos and should be excluded from polite society. If I won the lottery I'd have a library in my house, shelved floor to ceiling on all four walls.
People who don't like being surrounded by books are yahoos and should be excluded from polite society. If I won the lottery I'd have a library in my house, shelved floor to ceiling on all four walls.I sympathize, but am going all-digital for the sake of clutter & portability. This in reaction to my parents - as a woodwork project my dad built bookcases covering one wall of the dining room, which was a massive improvement but contained only a fraction of their whole collection. Growing up in a houseful of books made me who I am, but the weight of the things is impossible.
Clutter. It doesn't give me joy and is in the other thread anyway.
If you didn't like the man, ok, but that's pretty harsh, Moby.
134-136: I like the idea of being surrounded by books, if money and space were no object I'd totally have a room dedicated to a library, I'm pretty sure I read more than average, I've loaned books to and borrowed books from friends and keeping old ones is useful for that, and I even reread books now and then so I actually would get some use out of keeping books I've already read.
All that being said, when I think about the space books take up, the weight of them (that hypothetical library would have shelves constructed better than my Ikea-or-worse shelves), and how rarely I actually reread or loan out the vast majority of them, the actual experience of being surrounded by books seems like too much trouble.
137: Ugh. And the same age as David Bowie too.
How about a big donation to the NYPL to get 24-hour access, and a full-time personal reference librarian.
141: If money's no object, I think the optimum solution is to give an absolutely colossal donation to the NYPL that will allow them to build a new building identical to the old building but one floor higher, and put your apartment on the extra floor.
I don't mean to be cheap about this, but I think you could probably put a penthouse on the roof without rebuilding the whole thing.
But you might also want the new building to be somewhere else. Maybe somewhere handier for shopping, or with better weather.
Go big or go home, LB. Or, I suppose, go big and go home.
Did someone here win the Powerball? Is that why we're worrying about this?
They say celebrities always die in threes, and this seems to be a pretty high-caliber set. Who's next? Judi Dench? Maggie Smith? Geoffrey Rush? How can Lindsay Lohan have outlived all these people?
[Pedantic note: I meant IKEA sells 18 piece dish sets for $15, so 6x3. A 6-piece set for $15 is cheap but not as ridiculously so]
NYPL seems a bit unambitious as a library target to aim at.
[sniffs snootily]
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=duke+humphrey%27s+library&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch
Maybe?
Maybe somewhere handier for shopping,
I beg your pardon. Better than its current location?
Is there a ship's chandler nearby? I think not.
20 min on reliable public transport good enough?
Judi Dench? Maggie Smith? Geoffrey Rush? How can Lindsay Lohan have outlived all these people?
Either Lindsay Lohan is super hott for an octogenarian, or that's not how "outlived" works.
My parents used to work in this library, which apparently has apartments in the roof for maintenance staff. Gentrify those suckers and away you go.
going all-digital for the sake of clutter & portability
I hope you mean non-DRM digital. Books you license, don't own, can't lend, can't give to anyone, can only read on specific devices, and that can't be transferred to heirs aren't that portable. In the long run.
148: I really need to get to England.
147: Also, it seems that 69 is becoming the new 27.
The 69 Club has a nicer ring to it, anyway.
Yes, non-DRM. Lots of pdfs though. Hopefully institutional inertia will those supported for my lifetime.
More than inertia, PDFs are getting a lot of preservation attention. You could make PDF/A files if you wanted, but my guess is PDF will be renderable as long as PDF/A is renderable, and you find big libraries and archives using both.
PDF/A
Never heard of this before; good to know.
29: I suspect there's a similar phenomenon going on here. If you can't impress the neighbors by having a ton of things, you can be impressive by having everything "curated" and sleekly chic.
I'm the wrong target for minimalism. I don't have a sense of style for the house, and if I did, it would be covered in books, LEGO, or hot wheels (depending on the room.)
162: first step to minimalism is: ditch the kids.
I have a coffee mug with the slogan "BE MINE AWARE! COMPLACENCY KILLS!" in a font that makes the letters appear to be dripping blood, and illustrated with a drawing of the Grim Reaper holding a scythe and carrying a sort of Santa-style sack full of anti-personnel mines, hand grenades, and unexploded cluster bomb submunitions. It is the single most metal object I own and I am far too afraid ever to use it in case I break it or something.
Our place is cluttered as hell, which is a) mostly my fault, and b) a huge source of stress for me. I'm trying to psych myself up for purging a ton of stuff by reminding myself that it's got to be a lot easier than beating cancer, so I must be capable of it. Not sure if that's the worlds best strategy, but it seems to be working alright thus far.
Sort of on topic: Arizona is very minimalist in terms of vegetation.
148 Unambitious? That's my old shop you're sniffing snootily at.
168 Was me.
Now I have a feeling that ttaM is going to come at me with 800,000 high resolution downloadable images of the Vatican's unicum of the Necronomicon.
Shouldn't 170 have a period rather than a comma?
171: Two exclamation points -- one before and one after Lemmy.
DEAL FROM STRENGTH OR GET CRUSHED EVERY TIME
I am not btock style, but after watching that I want to be.
123 describes my attitude towards minimalism/matching sets/clutter generally as well, though from someone who's more virtuous when it comes to messiness.
I am suspicious of people who adopt that kind of aesthetic - why would you want to live in a hotel? I've also noticed that when I've visited the houses of people who did at some point make a concerted effort to have matching sets of things and so on I usually see the matching set of coffee cups (or whatever) lined up tidily in the cupboard behind the two or three mismatched, older ones that they use instead of the nice set. So I tend to be skeptical of the whole thing anyway.
It's just like the Yes We Can video.
I keep saying I could not enjoy this election cycle more and yet, it keeps getting better.
Just last night it occurred to me that a Trump-Sanders match-up could be a choice between two (to all appearances) atheists. Has there been another presidential election between two atheists? Where neither can point to a plausible religious practice?
Sorry Mexicans, Trump campaign was worth it for that video. "Deal From Strength Or Get Crushed Every Time' is just the best line.
This video has transcribed lyrics at the bottom. They also use the word "Ameritude."
I'm really not convinced that Trump isn't just Poe's law-ing the United States.
I am finding it confusingly gratifying to see Trump proving, beyond and doubt, that my views on the Republican base are true. I mean, look at this! look at it!
At the same time, it's one of those "Oh, we are very doomed" confirmations.
I recently read something that was talking about "puffery" as a legal term of art -- referring to claims which are never intended to be taken literally and, therefore, which the person is not legally obligated to substantiate.
The video in 173 is an impressively extreme example of puffery.
Between 173 and discovering that there was a song called Fucking My Heart In the Ass it's a day of musical wonder for Chopper.
Also, I hope Trump works in the line in 173 in the debate tonight. Perhaps he could just play the song when called on to respond.
And by play the song, I mean bring out a dance troupe of pre-pubescent girls.
If 189 happens, Trump will have wrapped the election right then and there.
They are already the greatest musical act of the new century. Did Lemmy ever record a song called "The National Anthem, Part 2"? I think not. (I'm actually shocked that Kanye never did, either.)
"The National Anthem Part 2 emerges like a beacon of light slicing into the darkness. A super high energy dance song combining elements of the Star Spangled Banner to help inspire freedom and increase patriotism through EDM musicality."
I had to stop listening when they shouted "Never Forget!"
"The National Anthem, Part 2" is such a great name for a song.
It is for real pretty catchy though. "inspire freedom proudly to the world/Ameritude/American pride/it's attitude/it's who we are/stand up tall."
173 et seq: Sometimes I doubt the commentariat's commitment to Sparkle Motion.
"Ameritude" is for real a great word and perfectly describes what they are doing. I'm going to try and make Ameritude happen.
I suppose we've moved on, but we've gotten through two stages of KonMarie (clothes and books) which were perfectly good purges. My favorite part is her approach to clothes storage -- I like to see all of my shirts/socks/undies-yes-even-undies at once, standing up in the drawer.
I can remember when my mother used to iron underwear.
Yeah, mine too. She also ironed the sheets and the pillowcases (which I am too lazy to ever, ever do; but sleeping on freshly ironed bed linens is something that I recall from my childhood: the sense of comfort, and of everyday luxury, that those starched and ironed sheets conveyed...). My mother loved a crisp percale, by the way, and was deeply suspicious of a sateen weave.
When we would tease her about ironing the pillowcases and the underwear, our mum used to say, "It's my last vestige of good housekeeping." A narrative of declension, I suppose. As if she should have also been ironing the socks, I guess (but here she drew a line; and the socks she did not do).
My mother also ironed the tea towels (kitchen towels).
Ameritude is indeed terrific. "His name is Magnitude. It's short for Magnetic Attitude." "This guy's nickname has a nickname!')
173 was me... even weirder (not least because real) than Sky Marshal Omar Anoke.
https://youtu.be/9D_6JWxoC9c
And "weirder than Paul Verhoeven can imagine" is not somewhere you want to be.
202.2: Events are beginning to remind me of the Illuminatus trilogy, which is also bad but means we might get a giant secret submarine.
Divorce can be an incredibly efficient way to declutter.
On the other hand, I know own a single chair, and no table at all. Still, a month ago I was sleeping on the floor. At this rate I'll be cluttered again by June.
I've also divested myself of 25 or 30 boxes of books over the last year. I wondered if I might regret that, but so far no.
I'm going to try and make Ameritude happen.
Is this to become a replacement for Halfordismo, or is it an amendment to it?
Ironed flat sheets with properly tucked in corners are dreamy.
I am intrigued by the folding & clothes storage method but it does seem to assume non-flimsy clothes, e.g. relatively stiff cotton knit camisoles as opposed to wool and wool-silk ones, and entirely ignores silk slips.
Wow, I finally watched 173. It's like Rebecca Black started politically consulting.
206 -- Halfordismo is a universal, international policy program, and is thus immune to Ameritude. If necessary, though, I am happy to build Halfordismo in one country.
Linen sheets are the best, soooooo nice.
Linen sheets are the best, soooooo nice.
That was me, disparaging sateen. Linen is indeed very nice.
No no no. We got fleece sheets and they are heaven. Somehow, there's no hedonic adaption to them. Getting into bed is perfect and then, at 2am, when I turn over, they feel just as incredible again. I'm telling you, fleece sheets.
Shearling sheets sounds like a bit much.
I do not like fleecy sheets, or flannel. I respect that people have different preferences, but no thank you.
Back when I lived in Africa, we had our underwear ironed because you need to iron the underwear to kill any insect eggs that may have been laid in them while they were hanging out on the line to dry. You don't want insects hatching near your junk.
I had some flannel sheets in college. Nice and warm in winter! I remember nothing else about them but their color (gray).
we need to maintain discipline and make all threads turn into bedding threads.
I feel as if linen sheets must get very wrinkly? Linen/cotton sheets?
219: in a sense, they mostly do already.
I think my linen sheets are just linen? The bottom sheet just gets stretched over the mattress of course but I guess the flat sheet is wrinkly? Kind of?
Linen sheets do sound nice. I'm warming to this. Though they also sound like they are probably not warm.
217: Now that you mention it, that's what my family does, too. I just never had to deal with it since I only started washing my own clothes after I moved to the US. My mom once got putse fly eggs on her clothes and ended up with a what looked like a giant zit on her arm, only when you looked closer you could see maggots writhing under the skin. She killed them by smearing a thick layer of vaseline over the area so they couldn't breathe, and her body just expelled them naturally over the course of a couple of weeks. A friend doing national service got rid of putse fly larva by (on the advice of his room mate, who claimed knowledge of these things) heating a spoon red hot and pressing it down on the area to cook the maggots in situ. My mom's way is better.
221: I hadn't checked all of them, this delights me.
Re wrinkling of linen sheets, if properly tucked in the bottom sheet no, and the top sheet or duvet cover no bc I think of it's drapeyness. Of course if you clenched them up in a sweaty tortured embrace sure but even I would eventually wrinkle under prolonged sweaty tortured embracing - lack of access to sunscreen & anti-wrinkle products for one thing.
To be clear, dq, I'm making a joke. It's a play on words, you see, based on the double meaning of "bedding", as a noun or as a verb.
even I would eventually wrinkle under prolonged sweaty tortured embracing
I don't believe you but am willing to help you test this hypothesis. (See what I mean?)
223: Well. Their evangelists say they are "cool in summer! warm in winter!" -- but I just think they feel nice.
226 Should have just gone with the blog canonical "Ladeez..."
Cotton sheets only. Especially here, though I suppose I should give linen a try.
I've caused some pain down in Africa.
Gonna hatch near your balls again.
There's nothing that a hundred spoons or more could ever do.
224: Both of those sound kind of horrific. When it happened to my brother my parents just took him to the doctor and the doctor applied a little spray on anesthetic, stuck a needle in there and pulled out the grub.
