The Visible Woman...September 30, 2003

When I get up I go out in the cool to see some fall bloomers and I see things all around that I should be doing...cleaning the ponds and other yard duties. Meanwhile, my cleaning inside beckons with my ill-advised collections looming at me from many angles.

This yard is a lot to keep up with. Over the years, flush with economic success, I had fun collecting things...books, globes, toys. Now as I anticipate downsizing, I wonder what in the world I'm going to do with all this stuff. What will survive to decorate my space, what will be given away.

I remember when the Preece man and I married. Both of us had little money and had struggled to find art and objects and furniture to make some kind of home. He had a small house and had managed to furnish it and he had a few little decorative touches. A bunch of wooden grapes, a very nice watercolor, a little unframed oil painting. I didn't have anything nearly as sophisticated. We wanted stuff. For most of our lives the wanting far out-stripped the ability to buy. And then it didn't. Some ill-advised profligate behavior ensued.

Yeah, when the economic vector changed, we didn't necessarily see the down side. We could afford a painting or two. Real art. I could collect cocktail shakers, bendable posable figures, old toys. We could have framed posters and prints, very nicely framed. Electronics? We could afford them. When we owned the building, we bought a few things to decorate it. We remodeled. More wall space! We had a turn at thinking of ourselves as collectors of vintage French subway posters. We bought amusing things in junk shops and vintage stores. We collected artsy martini glasses and cordials. We bought Riedel to enjoy wine and we bought wine to collect, to hold for a while. Because we could.

Not that these things returned the joy they might have. We moved out of the building, I moved out of my art- and-collectible-filled office and retired. (This office decorating had inspired bendie and other toy collecting, flamingo paraphernalia collecting and had almost inspire me to collect fake food. I think the globe collection took root here, too.) Things piled up. Once we had a storage unit. We got it mostly as a staging area for the parents moving. At one moment it had a tower of five or six boxes of bendable, posable figures and nothing else. We decided the space was a danger to our acquisitiveness. We moved the bendies out and let it go.

We didn't make the big house mistake, though. We never thought we should buy a house with five thousand or ten thousand square feet just to display more stuff.

Trying to get out of the way of the remodel we are planning and trying to tidy up the vast yard (full itself with ponds and big found object sculpture and fancy pots) the stuff is in my face, I must say. I love a lot of it, no doubt.

I cringe at all the collections I started, at how I unwittingly (well maybe wittingly) encouraged other people to give me (one of) bendable, posable figures; teenaged mutant ninja Turtle ware; legos and other construction toys; globes; fake food; cocktail shakers, siphons, and such; martini glasses; flamingo stuff; flying pigs.

Often I thankfully collected more books about collectibles than the actual collectibles. And the books! We estimate the population at 3,000 around here.

I've actually taken a lot of the stuff to the thrift store and sent it on its way through the possession system of modern life in the U.S.A...into some other collection or through the system of junk shops and ebay sales. But some things I have difficulty parting with. I think I could give them away...to the right person. I think I could display them again in the right space.

I wish it were easier to move on from this acquisitive phase. I'm glad that I haven't acquired much that has real value and demands archival, climate-controlled protection. I enjoy walking around among the stuff sometimes, particularly the books. The enjoyment fades if I need to make some space or dust.

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

A Journal from Austin, Texas. A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.
food	reading	writing	time	exercise	health and mood

one thing I did today was make the bird start spitting water into the pond again	duties When I get up I go out in the cool to see some fall bloomers and I see things all around that I should be doing...cleaning the ponds and other yard duties. Meanwhile, my cleaning inside beckons with my ill-advised collections looming at me from many angles. This yard is a lot to keep up with. Over the years, flush with economic success, I had fun collecting things...books, globes, toys. Now as I anticipate downsizing, I wonder what in the world I'm going to do with all this stuff. What will survive to decorate my space, what will be given away. I remember when the Preece man and I married. Both of us had little money and had struggled to find art and objects and furniture to make some kind of home. He had a small house and had managed to furnish it and he had a few little decorative touches. A bunch of wooden grapes, a very nice watercolor, a little unframed oil painting. I didn't have anything nearly as sophisticated. We wanted stuff. For most of our lives the wanting far out-stripped the ability to buy. And then it didn't. Some ill-advised profligate behavior ensued. Yeah, when the economic vector changed, we didn't necessarily see the down side. We could afford a painting or two. Real art. I could collect cocktail shakers, bendable posable figures, old toys. We could have framed posters and prints, very nicely framed. Electronics? We could afford them. When we owned the building, we bought a few things to decorate it. We remodeled. More wall space! We had a turn at thinking of ourselves as collectors of vintage French subway posters. We bought amusing things in junk shops and vintage stores. We collected artsy martini glasses and cordials. We bought Riedel to enjoy wine and we bought wine to collect, to hold for a while. Because we could. Not that these things returned the joy they might have. We moved out of the building, I moved out of my art- and-collectible-filled office and retired. (This office decorating had inspired bendie and other toy collecting, flamingo paraphernalia collecting and had almost inspire me to collect fake food. I think the globe collection took root here, too.) Things piled up. Once we had a storage unit. We got it mostly as a staging area for the parents moving. At one moment it had a tower of five or six boxes of bendable, posable figures and nothing else. We decided the space was a danger to our acquisitiveness. We moved the bendies out and let it go. We didn't make the big house mistake, though. We never thought we should buy a house with five thousand or ten thousand square feet just to display more stuff. Trying to get out of the way of the remodel we are planning and trying to tidy up the vast yard (full itself with ponds and big found object sculpture and fancy pots) the stuff is in my face, I must say. I love a lot of it, no doubt. I cringe at all the collections I started, at how I unwittingly (well maybe wittingly) encouraged other people to give me (one of) bendable, posable figures; teenaged mutant ninja Turtle ware; legos and other construction toys; globes; fake food; cocktail shakers, siphons, and such; martini glasses; flamingo stuff; flying pigs. Often I thankfully collected more books about collectibles than the actual collectibles. And the books! We estimate the population at 3,000 around here. I've actually taken a lot of the stuff to the thrift store and sent it on its way through the possession system of modern life in the U.S.A...into some other collection or through the system of junk shops and ebay sales. But some things I have difficulty parting with. I think I could give them away...to the right person. I think I could display them again in the right space. I wish it were easier to move on from this acquisitive phase. I'm glad that I haven't acquired much that has real value and demands archival, climate-controlled protection. I enjoy walking around among the stuff sometimes, particularly the books. The enjoyment fades if I need to make some space or dust.
JUST TYPING I wonder. About the people with six thousand square feet. Twenty thousand. Do they collect legos or bendies? Books or cocktail shakers? Actually, they don't seem to...they seem to let decorators amass things mostly, things they aren't very connected to. Oh, some collect and know a lot about the stuff and fill the house lovingly with things about themselves. They usually don't have the biggest houses. For myself, my acquisition has been scattered and silly. It's embarrassing now, for the most part. There are a few things, very few that stand up. A few paintings and pieces of art, a collectible or two that make my heart sing with ownership. But mostly...things are a little trite or not quite right. But fine until you need to pay attention...by moving them out of the way...to get more space...more walls.
		Food Diary. *breakfast* nothing *lunch* can of tuna in spring water (150 calories), slice of American cheese, Granny Smith apple plate of nachos *dinner* half of two different Indican frozen dinners (about 400 calories) spinach salad with mozzarella and Marie's Bleu Cheese dressing 1/2 Shiner Bock (left over from last night) *snack* Miller Lite some jelly bellies (25?) Honey and Oat bars (180 calories) slice of American cheese The all cheese diet and silly snacking. I also drank a Diet Coke although I usually avoid sodas all together if I can.
		Time flies.... As usual, I got to the gym later than I would like and then spent some time after my workout talking to my trainer about an appointment to learn some new drills. When I got home, I got into my old hiking boots and jeans and found some gloves and got the hose out to the pond with the spitting birds and cleaned the filter and got it going again and filled the other pond and watered some stuff and looked at other things I should do out there. Then I came inside and packed up some more of my clothes to go in storage (how many T-Shirts does one person really need?). I fixed some lunch, boiled some eggs, read the paper while eating. Then I went through some more stuff. This sorting out is very time-consuming. Surely I'll reach the end, more or less, at some point.

		Reading. Two Sides of the Beach by Edmund Blandford is interesting because it compares what the news reports said at home to what was really happening to Monty's soldiers in the field and the Germans fighting them. I've been reading, off and on (in the bathroom actually), an article in The New Yorker about New York City's water system. The system of aquaducts and tunnels is both fascinating and frightening. Finished this off in bed before going to sleep and started a Dave Eggers short story in the same issue. Read papers, some today's, some not. Althea Gibson died and Elia Kazan. Wow...I loved some of his movies and not just On the Waterfront. How about Face in the Crowd?
		I let myself sit and pound in the journal this morning. Just writing some of the stuff above without thinking. I like to do that. Then I brought up some of the other things I'm toying with after lunch and reread them and wrote a few sentences.
		Exercise Thirty minutes recumbent bike. Upper body (shoulder, chest, back) exercises. Stretches and abs. Fifteen minutes recumbent bike.
	.	111/63 75 Mood is good. I went outside and got one of the pond's fountain thing going again and did a few things outside and continued trying to tame the stuff and the maid called in sick so she wasn't in my way and we didn't have anywhere to go tonight so somehow all that made me feel good. That and FFP talking about retiring himself and how we could travel and play.