Anyway, besides being the best friend she is an awesome person. I still remember the first time I met her in Tallahassee, at my favorite bar. http://www.poorpaulspourhouse.com/ It was her first day in Tallahassee, and I, being a law student, was at the bar early - probably around 4? She was one of the only other people in there besides the bartenders. And she was reading a newspaper............AT A BAR. So, obviously I had to make fun of her, and we were best friends ever since.
She is an inspiration to many people, although as is true with most self-sacrificing people, she doesn't know how much of an inspiration she really is. Although we differ on pretty much every political opinion there is (for example: she wants to get rid of most prisons, and I spent most of my career putting people IN prison) she is my person and I love her dearly.
Now, in order to get ready for her visit, I of course, waited until the final days to start cleaning out the guest room. Which, during our basement renovation project (more to come on that later) has become the storage room for all of our random crap that I have been too busy or lazy to actually put away. So today, I started cleaning it out.
We all have these rooms in our houses. The rooms that we throw things into, without a care for any sort of order - thinking, "I'll put that where it goes later". Normally this happens when an unexpected guest decides to tell you, 30 minutes before they arrive, that they are dropping by, and you end up shoving everything into this room. Kinda like the adult version of shoving everything under your bed or in your closet.
I found bags of clothes that two years ago, when I moved up here, I decided to donate after going through my closet in a half hearted attempt to get my crap in some sort of order. Yet, two years later, they are still here. Random craft projects I started, like the cover to my new kitchenaid mixer that I thought I would sew from scratch (those of you that know me, are now laughing outrageously at the thought of me sewing). Christmas decorations that should be up in the attic.......yes it is the end of April, DON'T JUDGE ME, and kitchen appliances that won't fit into our kitchen.
So here I am, standing in the middle of a total mess, wondering where in the heck am I going to shove all this crap now. Because you know I'm not actually going to put it AWAY. So, of course, I shoved all of it either back into the corners of my bedroom, where she won't go and look, or into the corners of the office (which serves as a secondary storage room at the moment). You know, like from under the bed to into the closet.
And all this crap that I have accumulated throughout my life got me to thinking. I remember driving somewhere at somepoint in my life, and looking out the windows and seeing building after building of storage units. In every town, in every state in the US there are battles waging between self storage companies. There are programs now on tv about storage wars, and the random junk you can find in an abandoned unit or house or attic. And I wonder - even in this time of economic recession, we American's still have enough crap in our lives, to keep these businesses afloat and booming. Call it a nod to the American way of life that we stand in line for 12 hours to buy the new phone that's out - or the new gaming system that is going to change the way we view our boring lives. When we have such a high level of homelessness or poverty in our country, where people are living without basic necessities of life - instead of donating our random items, we hoard them into units that we pay monthly, never clean out and end up abandoning years later; which, in turn, creates these Storage Wars TV shows.
These self storage units apparently didn't come into being until the 1960's.* Which I find oddly interesting, as I wonder, why? Why the 1960's? I know that some historians view the 60's as an era of irresponsible excess and flamboyance, which would make sense with the coming of age of self storage units.
Regardless, I shall make an effort to clear the house of excess clutter and donate those things that end up sitting in the corner of some room somewhere collecting dust. You know, tomorrow, or when I have time.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_storage
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