Using things up

As part of my efforts to declutter, I’m going to write about my small triumphs and strategies and ordeals. Read no further unless you are fighting a similar battle…or don’t mind hearing about it.

If you are a woman in your twenties or thirties, chances are that you have a cupboard full of lotions, soaps, shower gels, bath oils,and sundry other cleansing products. Most of these probably came to you as gifts -some wanted, some unwanted – though some others may have been purchased on a drugstore whim, or acquired as a sample when purchasing some oh-so-necessary other product. Those necessities, the things one actually uses…well, those get used up right away and never delegated to the back shelf in the cupboard Where Toiletries Go to Die.

I recently cleaned out the cupboards in my bathroom (a tall order considering the size of the cupboards, which are high enough that I have to climb on top of the washer and dryer to reach the upper row), and though there was a fair number of straight-to-garbage products (see above re: toiletries dying), there was also enough left over to clean and primp and scent me for what I suspect may be a full two years. (Perhaps I exaggerate. But I doubt it.)

So now next to the tub, there are three overturned bottles of lotion. (Given that they are pump dispensers, this is no easy balancing act on the tile floor.) Two have been coaxed to give up their remaining, previously unpumpable goods and have already been completely finished and recycled. When these next ones are finished, there are still yet-unopened lotions lurking in a neat row in the cupboard. These, too, will get used, somehow. Don’t be surprised if you come over and I ask you how you feel about the scent of jasmine…

I’m lucky I live alone and there is no-one to complain about these odds and ends balanced around the bathroom. On the edge of the sink, there’s another emptying pump of antibacterial hand soap. It doesn’t look pretty, and it feels and looks like the height of parsimony. But it isn’t only thrift. I don’t want to take for granted what I have, nor do I want to waste anything. The packaging on everything makes me queasy. (I know, I know, it’s recyclable…but how recyclable? How much energy and waste goes into the recycling process itself? I need to look into this.)

I want to be free of so many of the things cluttering my apartment, but I’m a pack rat. Sometimes I have to do things the hard way when it comes to letting go. But the idea is that once everything is gone, I’m going to be oh-so-careful about what else comes in. Here’s hoping.

nearly February, crazy weather

Well, the list for the Oscars is out and Midnight in Paris is on it, and somehow that’s the only one of the long list of movies up for Best Picture that I’ve seen --- even though I’ve seen a ton of movies this year, it feels like. Just not those ones yet.

Speaking of movies, my mother came by my office today and dropped off an early birthday present of a DVD player, as mine was on the fritz (where does that expression come from?*) for so long (after, admittedly, functioning perfectly between 2002-2010…a decent run in the world of electronics, I suppose) that I finally had to retire it altogether. (Although along with everything else I’ve “gotten rid of,” it continues to sit in a box near the door.) Along with a new-old large TV someone gave me recently, this heralds a new era of luxurious movie-watching at home on something other than a 10-inch screen. My mother was also kind enough to bring a can of Tim Horton’s coffee and a big package of gourmet jelly beans (already opened).** Somehow I’ve got birthday bounty, and I haven’t even started to think about my birthday yet. I can’t believe it’s almost February.

The weather these days is crazy. Snowstorms. Rainstorms. Bitter cold. More rain. Repeat. It turns out that even when rain is freakishly unseasonable and frankly alarming (hello global warming), and even hazardous (sidewalks and streets frosted with slick ice), I still like it. The warmth isn’t unwelcome either. It gives me that spring feeling even though I know it’s a lie. I wonder…if global warming really carries on in the dreadful way that has been predicted, will that spring feeling ever give way to one of impending doom, or will that sudden Canadian lightness-at-heart that arrives on a warm breeze simply coexist with the rational concern we’ll all be feeling? I think there may be a tiny bit of buried glee even as we slather on SPF 5000 in the middle of February.


* According to various online sources, nobody knows for sure. Surprising!
**Recommendation: do not look at the ingredients on a package of gourmet jelly beans. (Shellac…plus two kinds of wax.)

managing expectations

The thing about Mondays seems to be managing one’s expectations. There is the thrill of upcoming plans (tonight: music and loved ones, tomorrow: drinks with a friend I haven’t seen in much too long, Wednesday: more music), the slight anxiety of conflicting commitments (two things scheduled for Saturday! Possibly at the same time! One in a far-flung corner of the city I’ve never been to before…), the looming freelance deadline square in the middle of the week when there is almost no time free to prepare for it, the allocation of lunchtime plans to exercise or errands or social calls (in this case, lunchtimes are given over to a dear friend recovering in the hospital across the street), the overly ambitious to-do lists that include pressing matters (the now-monthly and increasingly dreaded and despair-filled call to Bell to get them to adjust my service and billing as originally requested back in September) as well as items that have continued to roll over for weeks (make dentist and doctor appointments), along with all the regular stuff like buying groceries and making meals and doing the dishes and managing to get out of the door wearing two socks without holes in them (this last is only very occasionally achieved). Then there’s emails and texts and chats with friends. Then there’s worry and longing for people not seen in much too long, not to mention guilt over all those other ancient items on the to-do list that never quite make it onto the week’s menu.

And then there’s the writing. When to do that? Sigh.

If I expected to do it all, I’d be crushed by disappointment on a daily basis. But if I expect nothing, I achieve even less. All the writers out there with even busier lives (e.g. kids…gulp): I don’t know how you do it!

transformation time

Happy Lunar New Year! According to one of the dozen or so forecasts for the Year of the Dragon that I looked up (until I found something that caught my fancy…that’s the way horoscopes work, right?), 2012 is supposed to be a transformative year, a year of major shifts in one’s life (my Sheep horoscope seems to call for almost every kind of major life change imaginable). One site is calling it the Year of Empowerment – a time for risk-taking and moving outside one’s comfort zone. True or not, I like the sound of all that. (Sort of! It has to be admitted that my life is pretty great just the way it is, too.)




Bring on the Year of the Dragon!

Midnight in Paris

I finally saw Midnight in Paris recently, and I was a little disappointed, even though it was a perfectly fine movie. The opening was long and unfocused (I get it: we’re in Paris…happy as I am to watch endless picturesque shots of the City of Lights), and the whole thing felt too fluffy to mean very much to me. (I also kept getting bogged down by the “practical” considerations of the time travel magic…and how it worked exactly...though I recognize this is probably mostly my problem.) I’m not in love with the time period (true, I haven’t read all that much of any of those writers), and I’d already heard the best jokes from a friend of mine who was talking up the movie, and Rachel McAdams’s character was enough of a caricature (wasn’t she just awful?) to make the whole thing seem mostly like a pleasantly diverting little comic strip.

Then I was reminded of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a movie I don’t recall all that well, but which I remember well enough to be surprised all over again, when I think about it, that it was made by the same person. It felt like an entirely different category of movie. That’s Woody Allen for you. Prolific!

A few interesting Woody Allen links have crossed my desktop lately.

On Woody Allen’s typography (he uses Windsor, based on the recommendation of a printer who used to eat breakfast at the same New Jersey diner in the late seventies):

http://kitblog.com/2007/12/woody_allens_typography.html

9 things entrepreneurs could learn from Woody Allen (I think they’re pertinent to anyone involved in a creative endeavour):

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/14/woody-allen/

742 days ago

I made a note to myself on my iPhone as follows:

Dominant eye
Veins/blood
New York City


Before I started carrying a new phone, I used this Notes feature primarily for addresses, account numbers, and story ideas. In this case, I wish I had given myself a little more to work with.

getting down to it

Today is one of these wonderful Saturdays alone at home when it seems possible to get everything done at a leisurely pace...until about four or five or whenever o'clock when I realize I need to scramble to order to get ready to go out.

For a few years now (five?), my friends and I have been going out for dinner to celebrate Lunar New Year. Traditions/superstitions passed along by J's mom and rigorously followed ever since dictate that the apartment needs to be scrubbed clean, the laundry must all be done (and dried), and, if possible, a bowl of eight oranges needs to be obtained and placed auspiciously on a newly tidy kitchen table. At least, this is what I do. Sometimes it takes the threat of a whole year of bad luck to really inspire a good deep clean, and that's what on today's agenda. Though I really ought to have started earlier! But there' s still Sunday night if I don't happen to finish.

The dishes have been done (does anyone else clean their apartment in a certain order?), coffee has been made and nearly finished (hence the blogging break), and laundry is about to be put on.

In other, actually more interesting news: I finally got my notes on the new draft of my novel yesterday! So once I've taken the time to reread the draft (a task I dread less than usual), I can dive back into revising. I've now spent even more time away from it than I spent on the revision itself (three months), and looking over the notes, a few things were even a little fuzzy in my memory. I'm happy to have something focused to dive into right at the start of the Year of the Dragon. New year, new work.

Before the day is over, I also have to track down something to wrap some little gifts before tonight. (I'm happy with what I managed to pick up on my way home...I'll post a photo if I have time.) I'm also behind schedule on picking up red envelopes for the children in my life, but I'm hoping the stores in Chinatown will be open late this time of year, so I can pick them up before dinner.