Diggin’ at the Duggars

So…when I search my library’s app for books about clutter, one of the results is a book about the Duggar family.

I couldn’t make that up. I am nowhere NEAR that funny.

Call Me By Your Name

Jesus Christ, book I’m reading. Just call me out by name next time, damn…

 

(The Year of Less, by Cait Flanders, if you wondered. I wasn’t expecting to feel so personally attacked by a book about saving money and getting rid of clutter.)

Letting my fat flag fly

Perhaps I’m a little too irritable to start an audiobook about the connection between obesity and clutter…

Also, I swear it’s a joke — I know we already have QUITE enough bloated, size-queeny, too-fat-to-function patriotism.

New Year’s Vision Bored

I’m not a huge “Secret” person or anything, but I guess I should at least TRY to begin the new year with good juju — making literal room for a man in my bed so maybe I’ll create figurative room for one in my head.

At least the laundry’s clean?

Happy new year, all!

Fingerfucking my habitat.

Between the clutter blog and the “erotic gifs,” my Tumblr feed can be very disorienting first thing in the morning.

“Right. Make my bed. LIKE AN ADULT.”

“Oh, wait… A hand in my draw’s? Yeah, we’re doing that. Maybe I’ll make my bed after. (I won’t.)”

I think even the clutter blog would agree that particular excuse is not boring. 

 

Instant bravery: just add beer.

I haven’t been buying things unless I absolutely had to, because I was going to be moving, so the less stuff I had to pack, the better.

Except I ran out of alcohol.

This would be fine ordinarily, but I’m down to the last bits of packing, which means I have to confront the Boyfriend Box — a bunch of relationship remnants I’ve had tucked away, out of sight and mind in the closet, for more than 2 years. Like everything else in the apartment, I’m going to go through it and see what needs to be kept/tossed/donated. 

So I picked up a six-pack of Dogfish Head Namaste beer. For, um, inner peace. Yes. 

Bonus: I won’t have to pack the beer if I drink it all. But worst case, I move a few bottles to the new place.

Namaste, a quiet night at home, and all of Fiona Apple’s albums on shuffle. 

Let’s dance, feelings. I ain’t scared.

Burning sage. Only mentally, because I can’t be trusted with fire.

I’ve stopped calling it decluttering at this point. I’m a writer, goddammit — these are “life revisions.” I’m deleting the parts of my story that don’t work, expanding and carefully editing the parts that do.

Remember when I was Slut Singleton? My email and cell phone no longer do. (OK, yeah, my brain totally still does, but I’m working on it.)

Sad Singleton apartment? I won’t let the door hit me.

Couch of Horrible Life Choices (AKA the whorecouch)? Out by the dumpster.

Lingerie I wore when making said bad life choices? Let’s call it what it was: Trash. Not the good lingerie, don’t be silly. Bad decisions got made in $12 Target shit…and also a $6 super-clearance dress from JCPenney. (Don’t judge.) I threw that out, too.

I’d throw out the mattress, but I think that was just ONE bad decision, and I can’t afford to buy a couch AND a mattress. I’m clearing my brain, not my bank account. Though I did order new sheets and a new mattress pad. That should cover the bad bed juju.

Oh…and I guess I should replace that bathmat. (Ahem… Shut up.)
P.S. I just have one more post about clutter/moving after this, and then I’m done, I promise.

Picture Past Perfect

I’m going to hell, but you know what’s pretty easy to part with when you’re cleaning? 

Divorced folks’ wedding photos.

The Life-Changing Magic of Shutting the Hell Up

The other day I finished reading that super-trendy “tidying” book. (The book is insufferable, but I like the overall concept.) I came across this passage, and will try to bear it in mind when I start making the big “stuff” decisions:

“If you are keeping [things] because you can’t forget a former boyfriend, it’s better to discard or donate them. Hanging on to them makes it more likely you will miss opportunities for new relationships. It is not our memories, but the person we have become because of those past experiences, that we should treasure. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.”
— Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up 

I’m still not talking to my socks, though. Sorry, lady. (Not a joke — she wants me to thank my socks for their service. Out loud. I’ll pass.)

“Don’t let ’em tell ya fucked up isn’t fine, there’s like a million kinds of crazy and I kinda like mine.”

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. It involves feelings and mental health, and it’s not really funny-ha-ha. It’s long, and navel-gazey even for me. I promise to be back with snark in the morning, I just need this out of my brain.

I’m going to try to fix whatever this funk is I’ve been in. I’ll start with diet and exercise (and a vacation — thank you, lord baby Jesus), but I’m also going to see a doctor, because I’m not above knocking back some Prozac or whatever if need be. I think the fact that I recognize something is wrong and can fathom taking steps to fix it is a step up from this time last year, when I refused to see a therapist because it was just too much of a hassle to get dressed and pay to explain my “problems” to a stranger. I’m not hating on therapy, I just think my problems are stupid… which I understand is a problem.

You know how you can be over-tired and drive yourself home, and you GET home, but you can’t really remember doing it? That’s how I’ve spent much of the past 18 months — just sort of on auto-pilot and doing whatever NEEDS to be done, but zoning out on the couch or online at every available opportunity. I kept thinking that as long as I could put on the Person costume when I needed to, as long as I could get up, go to work, and see my friends and family, that I was fine. That’s actually what my sister said when I told her I thought something might be wrong — “You’re fine. You’re not CRAZY until you don’t shower, and every time I see you, you smell just fine.” So… that’s the “nurture” I’m coming from here.

I still think like that, to a degree. I know DEPRESSION can get to where you skip work. But, um… I’ve sort of done that. I’ve definitely taken sick days for PMS. In my defense, that’s WHY there are sick days — I really do think the way certain lines of work are set up, how are you NOT supposed to take the “I can’t even” day?

Also, I feel incredibly guilty being a middle-class white woman claiming to be depressed. “Oh, boo-hoo, you’re SAD? What’s next, an Eat Pray Love trip? Go fuck yourself, go to work.” (See?)

I’ve also been noticing a lot more my complete lack of focus. Example: I’m at work right now. I have work to do, but there’s email, and Facebook, and I have to write about my feeeeeeeeelings here, and there are baby goats prancing in pajamas on YouTube, and BAH! We joke about this in my family — we say “Squirrel!” like the dog from Up! — but it can get genuinely overpowering, like I can’t focus when I need to. I feel like this is related to the “I can’t even,” because I also can’t focus on, like, clocks and getting my ass out of bed on time. Who the hell wants to get out of bed and go on the “Squirrel!” tour? And then when I get home, Christ, who wants to think about anything ELSE? Give me takeout and TV, I’m exhausted!

The shift to spring/summer, the purging of stuff, and preparing to move to a new apartment are definitely helping, but it’s still been kind a semi-conscious existence, and sometimes the smallest things are just absurdly overwhelming, especially when my hormones kick in. Tonight I actually considered having the nice delivery man bring me new pizza so I wouldn’t have to get off the couch and re-heat the leftover pizza I had delivered when I couldn’t get off the couch last night. I didn’t, only because the idea of smiling and saying “thank you” to the delivery guy seemed like more of a hassle than re-heating pizza. (And, let’s be honest, by “re-heating pizza,” I mean, “eating it cold from the box on the living room floor while I watch Easy A for the 57th time.”)

There’ve been elements of all this my whole life. When I was younger, though, they didn’t have diagnoses, so I was just “lazy, antisocial, and flaky.” So I’m trying to decide how much of that is just ME as a person vs. something I might actually need help with. And obviously there’ve been a shit-ton of recent life changes that likely brought out the worst of things.

I’ve been blaming PMS, but I’m pretty sure when you’re moody and tired for most of EVERY month, that’s probably something that needs tending.

Or you’re just an asshole.

Here’s hoping I’m not an asshole.

P.S. Post title taken from “Break Me Open” by the glorious Anna Nalick: