Now, this entry is just like the transcript entry, in that I am working something out as I type, and thus it is not really for reading but for reference, and for directing people to to save my explaining it over because it is so tiresome. In this entry I use the words tiresome, tedium, mindless, inventoried, consumables, criteria, paring, and spreadsheet.*
I had basically a completely exhausting weekend. Now, I have an extremely exhausting schoolweek Tuesday->Thursday, so that is not good. I went to Hayward on Friday, which was lovely, and spent some time with an old friend. I monopolized her chinchilla and she fed me coke zero after coke zero, and we stayed awake catching up until 6 am.
Then, at 10:30, off to Oakland to drop off everything in my car except my purse and my car emergency kit in order to free up space in the car. Then I brought Nick to SF to help another old friend, who Nick and I went to ACLC with and I went to DVC with, move house. My pelvis was all torqued from driving and so I did extremely light tasks and refused to climb the crooked stairs, while Nick and Josh managed the larger things. Now, Josh had nearly all the way moved already, and I was just helping him finish up. It took 2 trips in the car--- because I insisted on it not taking any more than that. It took about 5 hours, and it was a little fun. Looking back, I can't believe I did not think to bring a radio. Radios are very important when doing mindless physical work.
Then we went briefly to the San Francisco Ocean and it was very beautiful. However, I was dressed for a warm day, which it had been, and the beach at 8pm was terribly cold and windy. I had to go back to the car after perhaps 5 minutes.
I am boring myself, but so anyway I went home and had Mother's Day with everyone and then drove home and spent my Monday catching up in Art (I missed semi optional Saturday class) and reading for sociology. And with my weekend just absolutely packed I was very busy.
And what stuck with me was a slight terror of having to move my things. I have to move at the end of June.
What I am actually writing about: Streamlining
So there is a man, Chris Mcnaught, and he has streamlined and decluttered his life to an impressive degree. He knows how many things he owns, and it is fewer than 500. His blog is a little cluttered though, considering. I do not know if I want to own fewer than 500 things. I know that I cull my things when I move, and I move a lot. I know that I own many things than are neither immediately useful nor beautiful, which I think is a good standard for owning things. I know that I am horrified by hoarding. I know that I take very good care of my things that I love, and indifferent care of the things that I just have hanging around.
Already everything I own including furniture can fit in my car in two trips (I;m in a bit of an infinite loop thinking about my car in this scenario, but I am letting it go). So. I am toying with the idea. The advantage is that moving will be easier, and I theorize that I would have more mental energy if my things occupied a smaller part of my mind as they might if they were inventoried and decluttered. I have already begun my inventory, and have catalogued 268 things. And I have 12 lipglosses and 8 lipsticks. I have 12 unsharpened pencils, and 7 pencils in use, and 24 pens. So. Consumables. Not planning to toss them although there is a bit of a surplus.
So far I have inventoried my bed, bedclothes, and spare bedclothes, the things on one wall of my bedroom, and the contents of my ikea dresser. (I forgot until right now to count the dresser.) I am pacing myself on the inventory, and only spending an hour at a time on it. I am not totally sure what I will do once I know everything I own (at my SC house). Right now I think I will weed the things I use only occasionally and keep them in the closet (bc I wil have a perfect list when I do need them), give away the things I do not use, and then see how I feel about further or more extreme paring.
I have decided to exempt my art tools and food and emergency kit from the purge. I will streamline those using different criteria. I have not decided how to streamline my clothes. I have too many to fit in my half closet, but I wear all of them.
I think Chris McNaught, who began with 2,000 things, either had a different method of counting or was already rather a minimalist. Because he started as someone with a whole household with only 2,000 things. And I have more than 200 in my ikea dresser alone. In fact, I could probably toss out the entire dresser except my hairbrush and contact supplies, and barely know the difference to my standard of living. I am not going to post my inventory. I do not know the reason, except that I remember being so furious when my parents would go through my things-even when they had bought and had to clean up every single thing I owned, before I was even school age.
I will share some things from the inventory that catch my attention. Before I started the inventory, I considered my calculator collection reasonable.
2- graphing calculator
1- scientific calculator
2- basic calculator
See, I need the graphing calculator for classes, the scientific one to keep in my purse for grocery shopping (the display lets me manipulate things as much as I need without slogging through the menus on the graphing one. I have to be able to put tax on the taxables, delete items I put back, multiply by the quantity, and store it all as I wander the store and as I do other equations to work out which things are the best value to me. I am going to do a post about grocery shopping.), and a basic one to keep in the car and figure gas. I also use the scientific one as a backup for exams. Now, this only justifies 3 of the 5 calculators. And in fact, I always have my purse when I get gasoline, so I might as well eliminate another of them, and only have 2. Perhaps one can go into my emergency kit.
*Do you know what is not tedious?
Good.
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