loose change

the fog has finally burned off this morning! i’m spending another few days taking care of rex in santa barbara. sam got home last night and we’ve spent the better part of the morning looking at apartments. i’m constantly frustrated by the internet lately. i’m beginning to understand my position in this rapidly-evolving world of technology as Vehemently-Anti-Update. we have too much information already at our fingertips yet we are constantly grasping for more. at what point is it enough!

i feel hindered by the internet’s advances both in the job search and the house hunt. it is absolutely impossible to figure out who to trust: the property manager, or the crazed 1-star-reviews from spited tenants, or the suspiciously glowing 5-star-reviews that appear scattered between dozens of poor reviews. and the job descriptions! how many vague words can you fit into a paragraph and still make it coherent? the unlimited potential of the internet makes it very hard to critically judge something one way or the other.

john mulaney spoke at the dreamforce salesforce event (something i understand to be a convention for corporate tech employees) and touched on this obscure language of technology:

in a deliverance well deserved for what one can only imagine is an extraordinarily vapid audience!

other updates of late–i’m working at the restaurant four days a week, and i’m purging my childhood bedroom, which is an absolutely gruesome task if you’re anything like me and possess raw and unprecedented talent for procrastination and distraction, and i’m trying very very hard to look at santa barbara through the lens of somebody who is imminently (and indefinitely) leaving it behind. there’s a lot of emotions swirling around up there, i’m sure, but the logistical process of moving makes it easy to put emotions aside.

i’m too excited at the moment to feel sad about departing, and i’m sure the bittersweetness of it all–, leaving family, leaving friends, leaving the ocean, leaving home–will catch up to me once i’m gone. the prospect of bringing g along will soften the blow of that, too. i can’t wait to see her acclimate to a new home–i’m excited to be cold again, to smell winter, to touch snow.

you wouldn’t believe the amount of shit i’ve gotten rid of compared to the amount that remains. it’s easier than i thought it would be–i salvaged some items at the last minute from the original donation pile, just out of some urgency to hold onto the version of myself that used to wear them (or that someday aspired to), only to throw them into the donation dumpster a few days later with the second round of haul-out.

for the first time in my life i’m realizing that tchotchkes have somewhat of a sentimental shelf-life–i’ve never lived in a minimalistic space. being an avid thrifter and a sentimentalist, i ended up with so much random shit in college. when it came time to move home, i packed it all up and brought it with me only to let it sit in the garage for three years, accumulating spiderwebs and dust. it wouldn’t fit into my already-full bedroom.

but as i’m starting to purge things, to have the conversation with myself about what is adding value to my life and space, i’m wondering what the mental cost of a memento is. one thing i’m learning is that there should be no neutrality on the scale–if something isn’t detracting from my living routines, and it also isn’t benefitting me in any way, i have to consider it a detraction anyway.

for so long i’ve considered myself an excellent curator of items. it’s difficult to part with certain things. i whisper to myself that somebody else will get great joy from stumbling across any one of my collected pieces in thrift. once i drop the bags off, i can hardly remember what i’ve put inside of them.

i’ve often thought of this collecting with some morbidity. i’ve wondered: if i died tomorrow, who would keep my pin collection? who would save the stuffed rabbit that bore witness to every minute of my childhood? what would happen to my most precious and favorite sweater? who would read my journals? i’ve wondered, only once or twice, if i should delineate a secret list. choose one t-shirt to dedicate to each friend. a memento is something to remember by.

now i’m very well aware that i am much more than the sum of my belongings! even in writing this piece, i’m having a hard time recalling what the objects i’m speaking of even are, which makes them much easier to shed. i want to move lightly!

you might have noticed this published on a tuesday! i’m still struggling to fully pick monday pieces back up. again, after slight procrastination, it feels incredible and elucidating to write, and i’m reminded that i would benefit greatly from doing it daily–there’s always room to grow!

i came across a substack of which i sent an excerpt to sam this week. the author, henrik karlsson, writes about an intimate blog that he keeps, secondary to his more publicized one on which the piece is posted. i’ll post what i sent sam here:

here is a link to the full article, which i resonated with wholly and completely, and for a minute allowed myself to feel rather proud about my commitment to this idea of a shit blog. and proud to have people who read it! thank you for reading as always and i’m excited to write next week!