Category Archives: garbage

On packing

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If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On packing

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If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On cleaning

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Though I am not the neatest person that ever lived–I file by the top-down pile method–I certainly appreciate a clean kitchen, a clean bathroom, clean floors, empty waste baskets, and an empty garbage can. Having a dirty, smelly, full garbage can is not only nasty, it attracts bugs, which is something I just cannot abide. Paradoxically, I am dead lazy when it comes to mopping or dusting, but I am good at doing the dishes, emptying waste baskets, and throwing away unwanted papers and junk mail. I can throw things away, but I have to focus to do it. I can’t stand to see some unidentified black speck on the bathroom floor, but I don’t get up in the morning vowing to mop every last floor in the house. And I hate to vacuum, which makes lots of noise and makes me sneeze, both of which are activities I can do without. I profoundly admire those who have the cleaning bug because immaculate floors are one of life’s great pleasures. I tend to leave piles of stuff all over the place, but with a little bit of a nudge (okay, by hitting me with a two-by-four) I can be convinced to go through a pile and throw most of it away. Books are problematic. First, old books smell a bit and they attract dirt, which are two big negatives for clean freaks who see books as one of their big enemies. New books are not as bad as old books. My oldest book was published in 1798. Dirt is both smart and ubiquitous. Regardless of how hard you try to keep it out, it creeps in everywhere–the garage, the entryway, the bathroom, the living-room. You track things in with your shoes, which are always very dirty, and you bring things in from the outside–food, papers, whatever–which will bring dirt with them. Cleaning is one of the monumental non-stop propositions that must be forever on-going or you will lose, miserably. Clothing is a great example of the perpetual nature of cleaning. In just one day a family of four will generate a load of wash, but it’s not just a load a day–the trajectory of dirty clothing is geometric over time, not arithmetic, so dirty clothing multiplies faster than just a load a day, especially in a hot climate like Texas or Florida where sweating is a national pastime. Soap, cleansers, and detergents are our only hope of ever turning the tide on uncleanliness, and in the end, we must look the other way anyway because real cleanliness is a mirage, is unattainable. Yes, we can make things look clean and picked up, but this is a veneer. Don’t look too close because you may find dust on the staircase or a cobweb in a distant corner, not to mention the stray dust-bunny that may roll up at the most inopportune time to spoil your immaculate “better homes and hovels” effect that you have set out for visiting relatives who think you are great housekeeper and a neat freak. All you can do resist the rising tide of dirt, but you will never defeat it. The mere passage of time is enough to bring tons of dust and dirt to your front door even if you aren’t there to dirty things up. Dirt is malicious. By practicing the age-old art of cleaning on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly, we can hold back, just for awhile, the inevitable influx of dirt and grime.

On cleaning

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Though I am not the neatest person that ever lived–I file by the top-down pile method–I certainly appreciate a clean kitchen, a clean bathroom, clean floors, empty waste baskets, and an empty garbage can. Having a dirty, smelly, full garbage can is not only nasty, it attracts bugs, which is something I just cannot abide. Paradoxically, I am dead lazy when it comes to mopping or dusting, but I am good at doing the dishes, emptying waste baskets, and throwing away unwanted papers and junk mail. I can throw things away, but I have to focus to do it. I can’t stand to see some unidentified black speck on the bathroom floor, but I don’t get up in the morning vowing to mop every last floor in the house. And I hate to vacuum, which makes lots of noise and makes me sneeze, both of which are activities I can do without. I profoundly admire those who have the cleaning bug because immaculate floors are one of life’s great pleasures. I tend to leave piles of stuff all over the place, but with a little bit of a nudge (okay, by hitting me with a two-by-four) I can be convinced to go through a pile and throw most of it away. Books are problematic. First, old books smell a bit and they attract dirt, which are two big negatives for clean freaks who see books as one of their big enemies. New books are not as bad as old books. My oldest book was published in 1798. Dirt is both smart and ubiquitous. Regardless of how hard you try to keep it out, it creeps in everywhere–the garage, the entryway, the bathroom, the living-room. You track things in with your shoes, which are always very dirty, and you bring things in from the outside–food, papers, whatever–which will bring dirt with them. Cleaning is one of the monumental non-stop propositions that must be forever on-going or you will lose, miserably. Clothing is a great example of the perpetual nature of cleaning. In just one day a family of four will generate a load of wash, but it’s not just a load a day–the trajectory of dirty clothing is geometric over time, not arithmetic, so dirty clothing multiplies faster than just a load a day, especially in a hot climate like Texas or Florida where sweating is a national pastime. Soap, cleansers, and detergents are our only hope of ever turning the tide on uncleanliness, and in the end, we must look the other way anyway because real cleanliness is a mirage, is unattainable. Yes, we can make things look clean and picked up, but this is a veneer. Don’t look too close because you may find dust on the staircase or a cobweb in a distant corner, not to mention the stray dust-bunny that may roll up at the most inopportune time to spoil your immaculate “better homes and hovels” effect that you have set out for visiting relatives who think you are great housekeeper and a neat freak. All you can do resist the rising tide of dirt, but you will never defeat it. The mere passage of time is enough to bring tons of dust and dirt to your front door even if you aren’t there to dirty things up. Dirt is malicious. By practicing the age-old art of cleaning on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly, we can hold back, just for awhile, the inevitable influx of dirt and grime.

On things under the fridge

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Have you ever noticed that if you drop something on the floor anywhere near the fridge, it scoots under the fridge as if drawn by mysterious forces of malevolent magnetism? I have dropped bottle caps, coins, walnuts, cranberries, clothes pins, pens, bottle opener, batteries, a spoon, half box of spaghetti, and a partridge in a pear tree. At first, you completely deny that the lost object has gone under the fridge and you look for it elsewhere. Once you are willing to recognize the inevitable, you start to get down on your hands and knees to analyze the exact nature of your problem. If you are lucky, the thing under the fridge will be right there within reach, but this only happens with cherry pits and old political campaign buttons. Your keys are probably under the middle of the fridge, or maybe even toward the back and there is absolutely no chance of sticking the yardstick under there and fishing them out. You look for a flashlight because that will help you figure out that you now must move the fridge if you want your driver’s license back during this century. Even with a yardstick and flashlight, however, you still can’t make out anything very clearly–lots of pipes and wires hanging from the bottom of the fridge that run interference for the missing objects–and the weird bottom-of-the-fridge fuzz doesn’t help at all. Even if you get your wallet back, it will be covered in weird gray fuzz, hair, dirt, and a mouse skeleton. Marbles and pennies will always find their way under the fridge, as will small toy cars, random earrings, the extra key to the cabin, Legos, the cat’s toys, broken glass, and the gas bill. Somethings that go missing under the fridge are gone for years, and so by the time you find them, you have already assimilated their loss and don’t know what to do with your long lost engagement ring, which you thought you lost in Yellowstone National Park. Moving the fridge is, of course, in the end, the only way to solve the problem of retrieving the kid’s teething ring, The second that you propose such an operation, everyone who could help suddenly has something important to do such as take a nap. Moving the fridge does pose a moral dilemma because you will always find lots of stuff that you never even suspected was lost. What’s worse is finding other people’s stuff, the dead bodies of every insect that ever crawled under there, or gobs of unidentifiable goo. Finding goo is bad enough, but cleaning up goo is worse. The things under the fridge are a tribute to our laziness and our clumsiness. I have frequently given up things that have dropped under the fridge because I won’t move the fridge and I really don’t want to know what is under there at any given time. Finding a half-eaten mouse under the fridge is gross, but wondering what ate the mouse is worse. Finding a sock under the fridge is bad, but not recognizing it is worse. Wondering how a wrench you don’t own got under the fridge is bad, but adding it to your tool collection is wonderful. I dropped a pen on the floor this afternoon and cap shot under the fridge. I’m still wondering what I should do to get it back.

On things under the fridge

Posted on by

Have you ever noticed that if you drop something on the floor anywhere near the fridge, it scoots under the fridge as if drawn by mysterious forces of malevolent magnetism? I have dropped bottle caps, coins, walnuts, cranberries, clothes pins, pens, bottle opener, batteries, a spoon, half box of spaghetti, and a partridge in a pear tree. At first, you completely deny that the lost object has gone under the fridge and you look for it elsewhere. Once you are willing to recognize the inevitable, you start to get down on your hands and knees to analyze the exact nature of your problem. If you are lucky, the thing under the fridge will be right there within reach, but this only happens with cherry pits and old political campaign buttons. Your keys are probably under the middle of the fridge, or maybe even toward the back and there is absolutely no chance of sticking the yardstick under there and fishing them out. You look for a flashlight because that will help you figure out that you now must move the fridge if you want your driver’s license back during this century. Even with a yardstick and flashlight, however, you still can’t make out anything very clearly–lots of pipes and wires hanging from the bottom of the fridge that run interference for the missing objects–and the weird bottom-of-the-fridge fuzz doesn’t help at all. Even if you get your wallet back, it will be covered in weird gray fuzz, hair, dirt, and a mouse skeleton. Marbles and pennies will always find their way under the fridge, as will small toy cars, random earrings, the extra key to the cabin, Legos, the cat’s toys, broken glass, and the gas bill. Somethings that go missing under the fridge are gone for years, and so by the time you find them, you have already assimilated their loss and don’t know what to do with your long lost engagement ring, which you thought you lost in Yellowstone National Park. Moving the fridge is, of course, in the end, the only way to solve the problem of retrieving the kid’s teething ring, The second that you propose such an operation, everyone who could help suddenly has something important to do such as take a nap. Moving the fridge does pose a moral dilemma because you will always find lots of stuff that you never even suspected was lost. What’s worse is finding other people’s stuff, the dead bodies of every insect that ever crawled under there, or gobs of unidentifiable goo. Finding goo is bad enough, but cleaning up goo is worse. The things under the fridge are a tribute to our laziness and our clumsiness. I have frequently given up things that have dropped under the fridge because I won’t move the fridge and I really don’t want to know what is under there at any given time. Finding a half-eaten mouse under the fridge is gross, but wondering what ate the mouse is worse. Finding a sock under the fridge is bad, but not recognizing it is worse. Wondering how a wrench you don’t own got under the fridge is bad, but adding it to your tool collection is wonderful. I dropped a pen on the floor this afternoon and cap shot under the fridge. I’m still wondering what I should do to get it back.