There now, there’s nothing so odd about carrying a large mammalian skeleton through the nice residential part of town. Not until a car comes in the opposite direction, that is. “Hey Roy, who’s the girl with the dead animal. D’ya know?”
I don’t have time for the cycle of regret, repentance and redemption that these packing shortcuts ought to demand. They are already making a mockery of my carefully designed basement packing plan and I can’t care.
Do I own the stuff or does the stuff own me? I never meant to be an acquirer. Many things have just dropped in on me. Stuff makes some folks happy. But I feel alternatively insulated and hemmed in. How do you know you don’t need it? Isn’t it reassuring to know it’s there…?
Every girl swears it won’t happen to her. Every young mother is shocked to see the tell-tale signs. “I’m becoming my Mother.” I see it in the friends I look up after so many years, at childrens graduations, in the tears and laughter. I catch some of those trite and untimely phrases as they want [...]
When I really want to clean something up I have to move quickly. It’s a race against boredom, a race against thinking too much, against all that training I did with my brain— practicing the piano, counting, clapping and breathing, playing imaginary games of College Bowl, outlining courses and terms, writing Moot Court briefs and [...]
I’m looking for a “special object.” What makes something stand out as special? My eye floats across my surfaces. I live in a high-stuff environment, much to the dismay of my inner monk. My objects have objects. There are small delicate family treasures, like crystal, china and stone. Then there are gifts from dear ones [...]