Cut the Crap- Weekend Blitz

When I was a kid, I was kind of a freak. Let me give you a good example. Every year, I would look forward to the end of the school year. What's so freakish about that, you might wonder? Every kid looks forward to summer vacation.

Yes this is true. But the truth is, it wasn't summer vacation that I was anticipating so hotly. I was excited because summer vacation meant that I had time to spend a week cleaning and re-organizing my room!

No, I swear, I am not making this up. Nor was this something I was forced to do, or even ASKED to do. In fact, if my mom is reading this blog post, she can attest to the veracity of this. Ever since the summer after fourth grade, I would spend a week completely re-organizing everything. Toys I never played with either were given to my sister or got thrown away. The artwork I thought was impressive got saved, the stuff I wasn't proud of I tossed. As for my school papers, those got organized in files. Yes, I developed a filing system for school work as a fourth grader. Did I miss my calling as a librarian? The school work I didn't care about got thrown out, but everything I thought could be important as reference, or everything I was proud of (I have a file that says, "I got a 100% on this test!") got put neatly in file folders. 

As a result, I can show you my 5th grade State Report in about 5 seconds. My fourth grade "Discover California" reports would probably take longer. Let's say 2 minutes. My 8th grade vocabulary lists? Piece of cake. Let's say 5 minutes. My twelfth grade physics papers? Ummm ... gee, I don't know what happened to those. They clearly weren't very important to me.

I did attack my whole bedroom with my cleaning and re-organizing frenzy, but cleaning out my desk was the most important thing to me. Once all my old school papers had been put away properly, I felt I could put that grade behind me. Fifth grade was not truly over until it was all nicely filed away. And then I could really start to feel like a sixth grader. Because of my summer organizing, I had much less crap than most kids. Because frankly, I was brutal. If I couldn't find a proper place for the spinning top I got in a goody bag, I just threw it out. 

I continued to do my summer re-organizing, or some sort of version of it until I graduated from college. All of a sudden, I was faced with the fact that jobs don't let you out for the whole summer. And if you only get two weeks vacation, you don't so much want to spend one of those weeks re-organizing your apartment.

So the crap started to build up. 

I have tried to get rid of my crap TWICE in the past few months. Once in February, I made it my monthly challenge. That didn't work out, so I joined Chile's "Cut The Crap" challenge. Well, it's the end of the month, and I am still ... full of crap.

So ... I don't have a week. But I have a weekend. My mission this weekend is to do the impossible. I am going to try and rid my apartment of as much crap as I can. Let's see if I am up to the challenge. 

Because seriously. Fourth grade me sets a high bar.

My Brand New Wardrobe

Guys, guys! Guess what? Today I went out and got four pairs of pants, a skirt, a pair of pajamas, two dresses, five tops, a belt, and three pairs of shoes!!

Yes, I'm serious. But no, I did not fall off the wagon.

See, back during FeGROCMo, I decided to organize a clothing swap to get rid of some of the clutter in my closet. Unfortunately, life intervened and the clothing swap had to be postponed.

In the meantime I realized the clothing swap was slightly more controversial than I had expected. There were some concerns expressed about all of us girls being different shapes and sizes, and people were concerned that while some people might have lots of clothes to swap, others would be left out. And then there were the myriad of scheduling conflicts with any and all dates.

So the swap almost fell apart. But then Honda wanted to go to the mall, and our friend Pi suggested we come over to her place, she'd make us delicious breakfast, the three of us could swap clothes, and then go shopping.

And that's what we did.

When I started looking through my closet for the swap, I realized I could not just bring the ugly stained stuff. In fact, it was probably best that the ugly stained stuff get left behind. So I decided to cull through my huge collection of dresses and take all the stuff that didn't fit me properly or that I never wore. Then I did the same for tops. And bottoms.

A lot of stuff got put in the pile that I REALLY didn't want to get rid of. Not because I ever wore the items in question, but because I was nostalgic for the items in question. I wavered and wavered over the red dress with the floral print from Express that I bought in the summer of 2001. I had loved it so much! I had worn it incessantly for several summers. It was a good dress.

But it no longer fits right. I've lost that freshman 15, and it's just not flattering anymore. Still, I was hesitant to part with it.
"Well," I told myself, "If no one wants it, I'll take it back."

Because, for me, it's easier to give up my babies, by which I mean my clothes, to my friends. Not because I intend to call them and be like, "Hey, you know that dress I gave you? Can I have it back?" but just because I know that my clothes will have a good home where they will be loved and live to frolic and play another day. So I was able to put together a pretty decent collection of stuff for the clothing swap.



I went to the swap not really expecting it to be THAT successful. Pi, Honda, and I are three very different body types and we all have different tastes. But it turned out we all managed to find several pieces of clothing that we liked and that fit! I wasn't really planning on taking too much. After all, I was trying to reduce clutter in my closet, not add to it. But Pi and Honda who are familiar with both me and the increasingly hobo-tastic state of many of my clothing staples were like, "You're taking those shirts. They look great on you." And you know, they did. So I took them.



And when no one wanted the Express red dress, I was totally chill about throwing it into our communal Goodwill pile. I guess I just needed a little push.

After that, we headed to the mall, which normally I avoid because me going to a mall is a little like an alcoholic going to a bar. Today though, I felt pretty okay with the not buying given that I had just gotten a wardrobe makeover for free.

Then I came home and as I put away my new clothes, I managed to further weed out some stuff I just didn't need anymore now that I had my shiny new couture. So, even though I ended up getting more at the swap than I expected, I think I did end up with a net decrease in closet clutter.

All in all, a very successful day.

Return to Normalcy

I'm back. I'm exhausted, but fine otherwise. The service was perfect. I managed to speak without crying. And now it's back to regularly scheduled life.

Of course there are only four days at February left, and FeGROCMo has been pretty much derailed. I never managed to put stuff up on Ebay, and the clothing swap that was scheduled for yesterday had to be postponed.

So I am going to try and get set up on Ebay, and I am still going to do the clothing swap sometime in March, but other than that, I'm going to let it go and declare FeGROCMo pretty much a wash. I did get rid of some stuff, and I did put up some other stuff on Freecycle. I did read, "Not Buying It." And I guess given the circumstances, that's going to have to be good enough for this challenge.

Meanwhile, the battery for my iBook is defunct. Which means I probably need to go out and buy a new battery. I was hoping I could wait until August, but I don't think I can go five more months. I don't think a used battery makes much sense though, so consume I must. I am going to put it off as long as I can though. Because I am lazy.

And I am now taking suggestions for my March challenge so feel free to put any and all thoughts in the comments. I have a couple ideas in mind, but I would love to hear from you guys.

Wanting More

Thank you all for your well wishes. Yesterday night was a particularly bad night for me, and you don't know how comforting it was to read everyone's comments. I really cherish all of my blog-friends, even if I don't know you all in real life!

Anyway, yesterday I was in a kind of bad place where I was like, "What's the point of it all?" and "Why does it matter if we recycle if my friend just died?" But today I'm a little more in my right frame of mind, and the truth is, if we care about our loved ones, if we care about our children, or our grandchildren, or our friends, or our parents, we have to realize the impact the environment has on these people. My friend who passed away had leukemia that had been almost completely asymptomatic prior to Tuesday. Now, I don't pretend to know what gave her cancer, or what could have prevented it, but I do know that there are carcinogens all around us. In our plastic bowls, in our dryer sheets, in our household cleaners, in our hairspray.

Why? No, really, why? Because non-toxic solutions do exist. So why do we allow these toxins in our environment? Why do these toxins still fill row after row at Target? Why doesn't our government regulate this more stringently? Because, here's the thing. You can make a non-toxic dryer sheet. And some people might buy them. But by keeping toxic dryer sheets on the market, you are implicitly saying, "It's okay. There's nothing wrong with this dryer sheet."

I'm reminded of Jane Smiley's brilliant work, "A Thousand Acres." It's a retelling of King Lear, but there's a twist. It's set on an Iowa farm, and a great deal of the tragedy of the piece stems from the toxic environment of the Iowa farm. I'm not going to spoil it for those of you who haven't read it, but seriously, pick it up at the library. It's a fantastic read, and Smiley received the Pulitzer for it in 1992.

Our government currently seems to be ducking its head in the sand and ignoring the very real, very large environmental problems that exist. They cater to businesses by not enforcing stringent safety and health standards, by allowing known carcinogens to stay on the market, and then they turn around and cut funding for cancer research and other scientific endeavors. And it's bullshit. I'm sorry to swear, but it is. And we shouldn't put up with it, and yet, we do.

And I just want to go up to the American people and shake them. And say, this is not right. We don't have to just go along with this. Judith Levine put this so eloquently in an interview about her book, "Not Buying It." I'm paraphrasing here, because I don't have the book on hand but she said that we Americans don't want too much, we don't want ENOUGH. That instead of demanding more vacation time, or universal health care, or affordable daycare, or paid maternity leave, etc etc we're settling for an iPhone and credit card debt. And it's true.

Let's think for a moment how different it could be. What if, after September 11th, the government hadn't asked us to go shopping. What if they had raised taxes instead? Now, look, taxes aren't fun. But neither is government debt. So what if the government had decided to raise taxes for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or to increase homeland security instead of going into debt? Or what if the government had decided to prevent recession by increasing government jobs a la the New Deal instead of sending us all rebate checks. What if Americans woke up and realized that we're getting a very raw deal right now. That we deserve better than this. That education and health care and the environment are more vital to our happiness than this year's boots.

And that's why I'm an environmentalist. That's why I'm a non-consumer. I don't want less. I want more.

Miscellany

Today I got an email from Red Envelope: LAST CHANCE for Romance. Sheesh, Red Envelope, I think I'll survive somehow without your $40 mile high kit thanks. Seriously, and I don't really mean to take this blog into R-rated territory, but apparently everyone else is doing it, do you really need to spend $40 so that you can have ess-ee-ex in a tiny germy bathroom? I really don't get why everything for Valentine's Day has to be so manufactured-romantic. In my humble opinion, chocolates and a teddy bear don't say romance so much as, I-didn't-put-any-thought-into-this-so-I-picked-this-thing-up-at-the-Vons. I love presents, both giving and getting, but I feel like the point of Valentine's Day is often to give presents that are designated romantic, as opposed to giving something that your sig-o will actually appreciate/wants/needs.

In other news my friend Honda IMed me today to tell me that her mom was getting rid of some kitchen stuff, so she snagged a gingerbread man cookie cutter for me. So, yay! No more having to hand cut from paper templates! We're so excited that Honda decided we might need to make summer gingerbread men in bathing suits.

And yes, summer has come to LA. I'm hoping we still see some rain, but last night I was wishing for a fan instead of a rice sock. So technically, there's six weeks of Freeze Yer Buns left, but, I'm going to start preparing for Heat Yer Buns Summer edition, and am on the look out for a used fan.

What else? Project No Waste is going poorly. Somehow I ended up with a loaf of bread that went moldy in about four days. I don't know how that's possible because normally bread keeps at least a week, but it meant I had to throw away about 3/4 a loaf of bread.

And Trim the Fat is going worse. I signed up with pretty much one goal: to reduce the time I spend online. If you've guessed that I've made barely any progress you would be correct. I *have* been spending less time online when I'm not at the office, but that's only because I've been going out a lot. When I get home, I still make a bee-line for the computer.

Next on the agenda for FeGROCMo? Paring down my purse collection. Someone once said that you are either a purse girl or a shoe girl, and I am definitely the former. I have WAY too many purses, but I love them so, so much. So this is going to be a tough one for me.

Oh! Remember the wine corks in my garbage diary? Well, the illustrious Green Bean tipped me off to a place that will take back your wine corks! Check them out.

Okay, I think that's all the updates for now. Any questions?

Building Community Through Freecycle

So I ended up posting my portable CD player along with the miscellaneous cables and cords on Freecycle. And the next day I had a woman eager to take all of it off my hands (except the phone cords. No one wants those for some reason.)

She came to pick them up, and we had a 5 minute conversation about where she used to work and where I used to work and it was so ... nice. And it made me realize that Freecycle isn't just about saving stuff from the landfill (though that's a wonderful thing.) It's about building community. Because had she gone to the store to buy a CD player and an ethernet cable, she probably wouldn't have spent 5 minutes just chatting with the store clerk. And when she left, we both thanked each other. Me, I was thankful that those darn cords and cables were finally out of my hair after seven years. And she, she was grateful that she didn't have to go out and buy new stuff.

I did end up keeping the mic though.

Our Patriotic Duty

I started to read Judith Levine's Not Buying It this weekend. I didn't expect I'd like it that much. I assumed Levine was younger than she is, and I kind of figured that she would be more of a cheerleader for the non-consumerist movement, trying to "convert" people to the fold. Since I'm already a non-consumer, I didn't think I had much to gain from reading the book, but I wanted a book for this month's challenge, and this seemed to fit the bill.

And now I am so glad I decided to read the book. Because while Not Buying It is a personal account of Levine's year off from shopping, but it's more than that. It's about the societal, moral, and philosophical implications of non-consumerism as well.

For example, Levine reminds us that after September 11th, Americans were exhorted to do our patriotic duty and shop. What does that mean? What did it mean?

Honda and I moved to Los Angeles three days before September 11th. On the morning of the eleventh, I was sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor when a friend called with the news. Still half asleep, I didn't understand the gravity of the situation. "But everyone's all right, right?" I asked.

"No, Arduous, two PLANES hit the World Trade Center. A lot of people just died."

Shit.

I woke up Honda and we wandered around our half-furnished apartment wondering what to do with ourselves. Our cable wasn't installed yet, so we couldn't watch CNN. Finally, we decided that we should go to the Red Cross and donate blood.

I am completely and totally terrified of needles, so I don't like to give blood. But that day, that was all I wanted to do. It was all I could think to do to help my country. So we drove out to the Red Cross. Where they were no longer taking donations for blood. Droves of people had been donating blood non-stop all day. "Make an appointment to come back in a few weeks," they told us.

We never did.

Instead we watched the president as he called on us to go forth and shop. So we hit the stores. On the late afternoon of September 11th, Honda and I bought our fridge. We bought mini-flags to attach to our car antennaes. And later that week we went to the mall, and I remember feeling pride, as I carried my multiple shopping bags with me. I felt proud to be an American and proud that I was "doing my bit" by going shopping. Oh, the shopping was with a sense of irony, no doubt. I was self-aware enough to realize that being told to shop after such a calamity was at the very least, a little odd. But I never REALLY unpacked why exactly shopping in the face of tragedy was so bizarre. I never really thought about how I desperately wanted to help my country, and how sad it was, that the only opportunity I was given to provide such help was ... to shop.

FeGROCMo Update

Well it turns out that it's a lot harder to rid my apartment of unnecessary crap than I would have thought. Part of this is because I'm trying hard to find good homes for my crap, instead of just letting it go to the landfill. And part of it is that, well, when you're not buying any new stuff, it's hard to let the old stuff go. Ohmygod I can't get rid of X even though I never ever use it because what if I decide in a month that I really WANT X and then I won't be able to BUY IT noooooooooooooooo!! 

Yeah, that's what I've been going through for the past few days. Still I have made some progress. I took a bag to Goodwill a few days ago.

And then I started going through my desk. I got rid of the floppies in the Drawer of Anachronicity. (Yes, I just made up a word.)

But I haven't really decided what to do with the tapes. I mean, I never really listen to them because well, they're tapes. But I *do* have a stereo with a tape player, and a lot of the tapes are tapes that Annie sent me my first semester of college so they have sentimental value. They remind me of Annie and they remind me of those first few months of school. So ... I haven't gotten rid of them. 

And then there's this:

My first response, was, "Hey I have a mic. Cool!" And then I thought, "No Arduous, you are not keeping that mic. It's been sitting in this drawer unused for 7 years. And then I saw all the other wires/cables in the drawer and I started to stress out. I am not a technological moron but seriously, I don't really know what half of these things are or why I need them. Which is why every time I move, I just cart these things along, because ... why? Am I suddenly going to realize what one of these weird cables is for? Am I suddenly going to need them?

So I can probably get rid of all of this stuff, but guys, I really don't know what half of these chords are for. So how do I get rid of them? Do I take pictures of them and post it to Craigslist, and just hope someone else knows what they are and what they do? I dunno. I have a bad feeling that some of these came with small portable electronic devices that may or may not still own. Which means that maybe no one wants any of these. Which means ... I might have to start looking into "innovative" uses for cables. 

Responsible E-cycling

I've been trying to clean out my home office, so that I can give any supplies I don't need to my volunteer organization. But what I found the most of in my desk? Electronic waste. I had about 15 floppy disks, 2 cell phones, and a portable CD player.

The portable CD player still works just fine, so getting rid of that should be easy. I can post it on Freecycle or give it to Goodwill or Food on Foot. But what about the cell phones that don't really work and the floppies?

Well, at first glance, the sensible answer seemed to be to take it to a center that recycles e-waste, right? Except, that a lot of these e-waste recyclers send this electronic waste to poor countries like China and India. So you have to do your homework and make sure that your e-waste recycler is not just transporting hazardous waste halfway around the world to be some other poorer country's problem.

Luckily, I found a really convenient company called GreenDisk GreenDisk, an e-waste recycling service that does not ship e-waste overseas. So that's where my floppies and used cell phones will go.

A Little Bit Better

Thanks for the well wishes guys. I'm feeling better today ... I clearly ate something bad yesterday but I woke up today and felt okay if a little unsteady. I decided to skip the Super Bowl party and instead did my taxes while watching "Legally Blonde." Sometimes you just need a day or two off.

Anyway, I haven't been able to get into the cleaning out of the apartment this weekend. I did shoot an email to the program director of my volunteer organization to see if she wanted any of the office supplies that I want to get rid of. I'm starting to realize that cleaning out my apartment is going to be much harder than usual, because I want to get rid of stuff without throwing stuff in the trash.

February Challenge- FeGROCMo

Since February marks 6 months of my 1 year experiment with non-consumerism, I decided to get back to the thing that started all the craziness.

So my February challenge is February Get Rid of Crap Month, or FeGROCMo for short.

Because while not consuming new things is all well and good, it's not enough to simply not consume. I've benefitted in the past 6 months from people selling their used things- whether it be a board game or books. And thus, I think it's important that I also try where I can to pare down, and let other people enjoy things that I have that I don't really use that much.

So, I'm going to get on Ebay! I'm going to get bags for Goodwill. As for the stuff that no one is going to want, I'm going to try and figure out what's the best way to dispose of that junk. And for the stuff that I keep, I want to get it organized so I don't end up with two bottles of mouthwash or 6 containers of floss.

I've also found the reading I've been doing each month to be an invaluable part of the challenge. In December I read "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and in January I read "Garbage Land." This month, I'll be reading Judith Levine's "Not Buying It."

So that's what you guys have to look forward to this month. The anal-retentive organizer in me is really excited to start.