Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
Explaining the Strange Behavior, Lancient History, Philosophy

Epicurean Spartan

the outside lane

I have too many clothes.

What is too many?  More than I could wear in a year.  Yep.  If I took all my clothes out and wore everything I own, I could wear something different every day for a year–or better.  A year is a conservative guess.  I probably wear a tenth of it.

I don’t have room for the clothes.  My (shared with Thor) closet was maxed out before I had unpacked two of my six giant tubs of clothes (and I think there are 6 more in the storage unit, which will go directly to Goodwill without passing God, or collecting any dollars when we open that up again), and my dresser didn’t stand a chance against all my belongings.  I’m like Empress Elizabeth, for heaven’s sake!  And no maidservants to clean up after me.

I got tired of feeling overwhelmed by laundry (and who wouldn’t?!) and I am very tired of not being able to put things away–not because I’m too lazy to do it (hello! have made my bed and kept my kitchen clean for a year straight now!), but because I just don’t have room enough to receive it all.  Thus, my Spartan Resolution to strip my wardrobe down to [what I consider] the bare minimum, and start life over as someone with Enough, not Too Much.

Tonight, I sat down and made a list of what I need.  I was very generous with myself (An Epicurean Spartan, if you will), allowing as though I were going on a long trip, and needed to pack for Career, Casual, and Evening, with alarming shifts in weather from Dead-of-Winter to Hottest-Day-of-Summer.  I gave myself enough Career Wear to go 20 business days without repeating an outfit.  I gave myself enough Casual to go 10 days without repeating an outfit.  I gave myself enough Evening/Cocktail to go to three parties–y’all are just going to have to live with it when I show up at the fourth party, wearing a repeating dress.  I gave myself miscellaneous items that are Winter or Summer only–enough to supplement the rest–and I gave myself three aspirational items (that one dress that doesn’t quite squeak by, that one pair of trousers, and that skirt I can’t bear to part with from 1990), two investment items (a couple of designer things I probably won’t ever wear, but like owning), and my workout gear.  Then, I went to work.

I’d already started culling out for Goodwill last weekend.

Tonight, I pulled aside the items that were To Keep, and just started bagging the rest.  The two tubs in the closet, which I haven’t touched in about 8 months…  Not even going to open.  Just taking them to Goodwill.  If I haven’t missed what’s in them, I don’t need what’s in them.  And, if I do end up missing something, I will consider if it merits replacing, and which of my Spartan Wardrobe Pieces it will replace because once I’ve gotten myself out from under this tonnage of clothing, I’m not going back under it.  And I estimate it will be this Sunday that I’ve dropped off the last Goodwill offering.  Lord unwilling and the creek rises, then next Sunday is my go-to date.

The resolution does extend to my shoes.  That’s going to be the hardest part for me.  I love my shoes like little sculptures, but if I’m not wearing them, they aren’t doing me any good.  Someone else could be putting them to use. Someone else might genuinely need them.

At this writing, I have two fully loaded tubs I haven’t touched in 8 months, another tub of that size I loaded tonight, two smaller tubs that are overflowing, one laundry basket full, and one full-to-bursting Hefty bag.  I’ll get my workout hauling these things.

Why am I doing this?  Because I want control of my things.  Because I am no longer emotionally attached to Things.  Because I’d like to do laundry and hate it like a normal person, not like a person who feels afraid and ashamed of the piles.  And because I’d like to see if I can.

I know I can.  I guess the more correct statement is that I’d like to see who I am, when I do.

I think to myself what a shame it is that I didn’t learn this at 20,when it could have made a difference in those fresh years–like Molly Grue accusing Amalthea in her unicorn form of coming to her too late (I understand and identify with that scene like I never could as a child.)  I think, “It’s a shame to be 41 and only learning it now.”  But that’s not a shame at all.

The shame would be in refusing to change because I wasn’t this awesome as an ingenue.  I’m not going to punish Current Me for the shortcomings of Former Me.  Former Me didn’t know any better, did the best she could with what she had, and acquired some really unique and beautiful wardrobe pieces that are going to make another girl feel very, very pretty.

Uncategorized

Decluttering my Life

the outside lane

I have found my time in therapy to be very fruitful.  I am drawing to a close on this aspect of it, feeling like I’ve gotten enough out of my time to focus less on rooting out the causes of my behaviors, and more time focused on behaving differently.  I had goals going in, I have met them, and now I am going to live better.  Part of that living better is letting go of stuff.

I grew up surrounded by stuff, and I don’t think I was even aware of it until I started watching Thor’s environment clutter up.  And the more stuff he amasses, the less he plays with–almost as if he is stifled or confused by the options.  Or, like he’s forgotten he has X,Y,Z because he can’t see them in the toybox.  When I’ve finished my decluttering, he’s next.

I have a picture, somewhere, of me sitting in a landfill looking pile of clothes and stuff (not trash, just shirts, and jeans, and dresses, and nightgowns, and books, and boxes, and records, and shoes, and dolls, and…ugh.)  Stephanie Black had come over to organize my life (having been the most organized person I’ve ever encountered to this day) and was shocked by the number of articles of clothing I owned.  I’m going to have to find that picture to post because you just wouldn’t believe me if you didn’t see it–also, because I used to be ashamed of it, and it was really nothing to be ashamed of.  I was overwhelmed by the amount myself, and was so buried by the emotional mass of it all that I was paralyzed against making a dent in it.

–I know exactly which photo album it is in, I just don’t know if the photo album is in storage–

Stuff was how my mother showed me she thought I was worthwhile.  Money was how my father showed me.  Where it got hairy was when Mom spent frivolously on me, and Dad protested.  I might not have needed (or even particularly wanted) everything I got, but my understanding was that in being Gifted, I was being Loved by both parents at the same time–something that I can count on one hand ever feeling outside of being given a gift–so I learned to crave Stuff.  Stuff filled a void in me.

You might say I was raised to speak Gifts as a love language, and Loads of Stuff became my slang.  I certainly wasn’t raised to speak Acts of Service.  I did know Words of Affirmation.  I still like those.  Tell me I’m awesome!  (Another area in which I am repairing myself, is in believing people when they say they like me, or think I’m nifty.  Previously, I either thought they were just lying to be kind, or that they wanted something and would dump me as soon as they got it.)

I just wasn’t very healthy 6 months ago.  Now, I would call myself pretty darn good.  I have decided what I want to be when I grow up, have decided that it is okay to want that, and am actually pursuing it.  I have decided how I want to live and am living that way.  I have decided which relationships are edifying to me, and I have culled out those that caused me hurt.

And, I am culling out my Stuff.  I have implemented Phase One of Austerity Lane Style, and I’ll tell you more about it later.  For now, I need to go get Thor a drink of water, and see if his next loose tooth is ready to pull.  Here’s hoping he learns to speak every language of love in equal measure.

 

Explaining the Strange Behavior, Lane is Reading

I Have Resolved to be Less Vapid

the outside lane

My New Year’s Resolution is to quit all celebrity gossip that cannot be reasonably avoided.  I started feeling a little too Idiocracy (get this movie and watch it if you haven’t already) about the extent of my knowledge into the lives of various strangers, who will never know me from Adam.  I mean, I probably know more about what certain troubled daughters of Hollywood have been up to, than their own mothers.  Once I realized I was guessing blind items more easily than I could work a crossword puzzle, I knew there was trouble.  I aim to change.

Like smokers turn to nicotine patches, though I’ve gone cold turkey on the celeb gossip sites, I am currently dosing myself with a book about Catherine the Great, who worked like a Clinton and partied like a Kardashian.  It kills a few birds.  I get to enjoy the gossipy stories about her heralded personal life, get to satisfy my pre-Soviet Russia sweettooth, buff up on my 18th Century European and Eastern European history, and just flat out enjoy the audacious character of this amazing woman, whose toilet I have seen in person.

After this book, I have lined up a book about phrasing your speech to the utmost advantage, a book on neuroscience that deals with whether or not biological free will exists, and a book that is…

An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise, based on the popular blog, youarenotsosmart.com.

You believe you are a rational, logical being who sees the world as it really is, but journalist David McRaney is here to tell you that you’re as deluded as the rest of us. But that’s OK-delusions keep us sane. You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of self-delusion. It’s like a psychology class, with all the boring parts taken out, and with no homework. Collecting more than sixty of the lies we tell ourselves every day, McRaney has produced a fascinating synthesis of cutting-edge psychology research to turn our minds inside out.

You Are Not So Smart covers a wide range of topics drawn from all aspects of life, such as coffee (it doesn’t stimulate you; it’s just a cure for caffeine withdrawal), placebo buttons (those fake thermostats and crosswalk knobs that give us the illusion of control), hindsight bias (when we learn something new, we reassure ourselves that we knew it all along), confirmation bias (our brains resist new ideas, instead paying attention only to findings that reinforce our preconceived notions), and brand loyalty (we reach for the same brand not because we trust its quality but because we want to reassure ourselves that we made a smart choice the last time we bought it). Packed with interesting sidebars and quick guides on cognition and common fallacies, You Are Not So Smart is infused with humor and wit.

 

Wish me luck.  Quitting LaineyGossip.com isn’t going to be easy.

Explaining the Strange Behavior, Family, Inside Lane, music, Thor

Colorful Muzak

the outside lane

Thor and I were on the way to meet Granddaddy for lunch today, and a song came on NPR that I remembered from my childhood Friday afternoons spent in the breakroom of Mom’s bank branch.  See, she worked until 7pm on Fridays, and I was far too young (and stupid–major candidate for the Darwin Awards, this one) to be at home alone from 3 until 7, so the bus driver would drop me off at her bank on Fridays.  I would check in with her, walk down the strip mall to the Pancake House, have a bowl of chicken noodle soup and more crackers than are healthy for a person, and stare at a print of God making shame fingers out of a cloud at a small boy whose kite had become tangled in a tree.  From there, it was back to the bank and straight into the breakroom, where I would entertain myself with homework, the funny papers, comics, and cleaning up the supply room until it was time to go home.

As you can imagine, I heard a lot of Muzak.  Hours and hours of Muzak styled in the 70s, based on the Top 40 of the 50s and 60s, with some Disco thrown in for good measure.  Mom would tell me the names of songs, when she’d come back to check on me, and tell me how popular they were.

I want you to know, I felt SO SORRY for her!  None of her songs had any words, and they all sounded almost exactly alike.  It was years before I discovered that Georgie Girl had lyrics other than the ones made up for the Kissing Barbie, Barbie Doll (whose lips you would color with a stamper, and whose in-back button you would push to make her head tilt into a kiss, leaving a perfectly shaped Barbie lip stain on whatever her rosy mouth met.  “Hey there, Barbie Girl, wearing cherry lipstick…”)

That made me remember sitting in our house in Colorado (so, somewhere between ages 2 and 4) and wondering when my mother had turned into color, since she was black and white in her own childhood.

Weren't all of the 40s black and white?

 

I wonder what Thor will misconstrue?

What he has not misunderstood is which is the better:  In or Out of school.

Yesterday, Aunt Jamie asked him if he was excited to go back into school tomorrow.  He said yes, then followed up with the caveat, “But I’m more excited to get out.”

Uncategorized

Adios, 2011.

the outside lane

Ten years ago, tonight, I met Bryan.  25 days later, we had our first date.  750 days after that, we got married.  I’m not doing the math to calculate how long it took for Thor to arrive.  He’s here now, splayed out on the living room floor with a Lego starship, watching Big Bang.  Bryan’s off to my right surfing the net.  Obviously, I’m right here.  Though I am about to go fix dinner.

It’s been a wonderful ten years.  I’m looking forward to what the next ten bring.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Wishing you love, happiness, and an overarching feeling of contentment in the new year. The same feeling I have whenever I look at this picture.