stuff

When I left everything, I left everything.

In the last 2.7 years, the question I am most frequently asked (after "How do you memorize all that?"), is:

"But what about your stuff?"

"What stuff?", I reply to their great disturbance.

Stuff.

It's everywhere.  It's omnipresent yet has no sentience (at least I think not).  People are supposed to have it. They are supposed to cart it around in cars (stuff), rent rooms for it (made of stuff) and invite more stuff into the stuff rooms brought there by stuff cars.

You'd think we were Thanksgiving turkeys. (Wait for it...)

Ok - I've got stuff.  Some of it is hanging out in my friends' houses while they use it.  Two suitcases worth travel with me.

But all my stuff -- ALL my stuff -- would fit comfortably in one of those 5x5x5 storage units I'm researching.  (I would not - I would bump my head.  If I wore heels.)

Yeah - it's the one key that makes him intriguing

I was always intrigued by James Spader's character in sex, lies and videotape - I loved his idea that having only one key - the key to his car - was some kind of freedom.  For a while I had no keys.  Now I have one - to a PO Box.  Soon I might have another, to above-referenced storage unit.

I seem, however, to be collecting key chains, a strange phenomena I've noticed in the last few months.  I've got 3 now.  One from Big Truck Tacos, one Hello Kitty, and one red telephone box.  I think what I really want is a Tardis key ring.


Putting a book into the world (oh - yeah - there's a little button on the right if'n you want to order it!  I just did that and I'm pretty proud of it!) had me questioning my relationship to stuff.  And why stuff can be cheap, but moving the stuff around is so costly.  Shipping the books costs more than the actual books.  Each book ends up being shipped, carried, or carted at least twice before it leaves my hands.  Sometimes more.  This is not a good equation.  If you stop to think about it, it only gets worse.  Having a book on a shelf is a nice thing, just don't go too deep into it.

Last night I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a long, long, time.  Stuff came up pretty quickly, as it does, and he asked if I'd seen The Story of Stuff.

The Story of Stuff?


I think that's my next book.

He said to google it, and I did.

Here's a clip - or you can watch the whole thing on their website.  If it doesn't make you want to change your life and your world, then you must already be living right.  So kudos to you.