Disorder

[rejectomorph]

Tonight, I saw one of those television shows in which people go to someone's messy, junk-filled house and tidy it up after making them discard most of their accumulated possessions. I could probably benefit from such a visit. Even more useful would be if someone came to my house and tidied up Sluggo's hard drive. I still haven't finished sorting through all the crap there to figure out what I want to keep. But I suppose the thing that would be most helpful would be if somebody came to my house to tidy up my brain. I'm sure I don't need most of what's in it, and all too frequently I am unable to find a thing I'm looking for in there.

I remember (ha! irony!) a tatty little shop a few blocks from my house in Rosemead, stuffed from front to back with the most astonishing assortment of industrial detritus imaginable. It even spilled out the back into a fenced area visible from the side street. It was probably home to a considerable population of vermin, and it was called The Store of a 1001 Articles. (We used to joke that it was actually 1002 articles, if you counted the redundant one in front of 1001.) In truth, I'd not have been surprised to find that there were upward of 10,000 articles in that small building, and most of them utterly useless. The place was eventually demolished and replaced with a parking lot, I believe. I had never mustered up the courage to venture inside, which I no more than half regret. It's likely that, had I done so, I'd still be suffering nightmares from the experience.

But it occurs to me that, should my brain manifest itself as a retail establishment (don't ask me how such a thing would happen- I'm no Douglas Adams, alas), it would probably closely resemble The Store of a 1001 Articles. That I am sorely in need of professional help is undeniable. That I will ever receive it is even less likely than that the workings of this computer will one day be comprehensible to me. Don't bet a dime on either eventuality.

Speaking of incomprehensibility, I've found that it is Opera which is giving incorrect file extensions to some image files, including those stored on LJ Scrapbook. One failing of the otherwise excellent browser is that many web sites don't play well with it. Some web sites it fails to see altogether. Ah, well. I've always got Firefox handy.

All night tonight, I've been hearing the high-pitched cry of some night bird. It has been among the trees, rather than overhead, or I'd have taken it for a hawk. I don't know if hawks like to hang out in trees. Given the time of year, I suspect that, whatever fowl it is, it is seeking a mate. Its persistent failure to succeed in doing so, hour after hour, has lent the otherwise serene and pleasant night an air of melancholy. I hope the bird gets lucky soon, if only so that I need no longer listen to its plaintive screech.

Saturday. I doubt that anything interesting will happen.

Comments

[marseille.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a bookstore, or more like a book dump, near Boston. Sturf stacked precariously higher than you could look at, narrow aisles through which to squeeze, trying not to knock over a pile of books, records, posters, whatever. All of it musty, as well. Plus, there was a cat to avoid with one's feet.

[marseille.livejournal.com]

Stuff, not sturf. ??

[rejectomorph]

There was once a bookstore of that sort in Pasadena. I enjoyed it tremendously. In fact, among the accumulated objects now in my house, there are more than a few items which I acquired from that store. Ah, the circle of junk!

[carbonunit.livejournal.com]

Those shows, (or that show rather, I think there's only one), is loathsome. I detest that show, and the other "lifestyle" shows where they make over someones garden while they're away or do up their house. They all work on the principle of immediacy. The garden for instance - they spend 2 days over a weekend ripping out whatever they find and replacing it with a kind of istant garden, but you never see the results 6 months or a year down the track. The reason for this is the same behaviour on behalf of the householder which resulted in the original mess, will kill half the plants, and the cheaply instantly erected seats or gazebos or whatever will fall down and get dry rot in months.

And that show where they throw all the clutter away disturbs me most of all. Sure, many people accumulate a lot of junk in this industrial age, but heaving it out just means accumulating a new lot. And empty people with empty minds can watch those shows and feel smug that they don't have any ideas. It substitutes emptiness for completeness. I know the story behind every useless item I've collected in my wandering life, and I'll smash in the head of anyone who tries to take them from me. The only thing is, I can't decide whether to use rebar club my brother made when we thought someone was sizing our house up for a burglary when we were kids, or the lump of melted aluminium from the caravan our family used to stay in on our bush block, that melted in the bushfires, or the coblers anvil that Nan used to crush aluminium cans... All useless things they would gladly heave out because I don't "need" them right now, but I would sure miss them if they did.

[rejectomorph]

We get a British show called "Life Laundry" which airs on BBC America, and a couple of clone shows made here which run on other cable channels.

The reason I seldom toss things out is because, when I do, a few weeks later I usually end up needing one or another of the things I've tossed. On the other hand, when I find that I could make use of something I haven't tossed, it usually takes me forever to find it, because there is so much crap to be sorted through. I don't think there is a solution to the problem of tossing or keeping. In the end, it's like getting married; You have to decide if you'd rather risk wanting something you don't have, or having something you don't want.