One of the reasons I'm trying to purge my stuff (my literal stuff now, tangible physical things, versus airing the intangibles here) is because I'm not really a very good owner of things. I'm a first-class accumulator, from a long line of such. An 1870's Hungarian census of junk-shop owners reveals a distressingly high number of them with family names from my mother's side. I fear it is genetic, this inability to release things that are no longer needed, and the impulse to pick things up for which I have no immediate use. I'm one of those people who doesn't see the ocean because she's too busy looking for pretty rocks and bird skulls on the sand. Taking walks with me in general is said to be onerous if you want to get anywhere because I'm always stopping to pick stuff up.
One day I'm going to get all Louise Nevelson on my stuff. That's the fantasy, anyway. Glue it all together, spray-paint it a solid color, and sell it for an absurd amount of money. Uh-huh, yeah.
In the meantime, the stuff I have gathers dust. I'm too lazy to hang things in pleasing and surprising conjunctions, like the walls of Thorn's place. I have several photo albums that got half-filled before I lost focus, and someday I'm going to drown in unstrung beads. I have no idea of what I own. Because I don't know what I own, I end up buying multiples. If anyone needs Dr. Grip pen refills, incidentally, the ballpoint kind, let me know. We're having kind of a surfeit of those around here right now. I'm on the verge of stringing them with some of the beads and wearing them as a statement on writer's block.
The point is that while I have a lot of stuff, I'm largely indifferent to most of it. I fantasize about a life with fewer things that I care about more.
So anyway. Yesterday I was in a pretty foul and misanthropic mood, so I took steps. I had lunch with the gracious and patient Wry. I made plans to see Snufkina. I read about half of Cyrano de Bergerac, which I highly recommend to anyone who wishes there was more passion in the world in general.
And I went to Rasputin and dropped money on music. What are you doing? Snufkina asked on the phone. I'm buying cheerful music, I responded, guiltily putting back a Sisters of Mercy CD. All cheerful. La la la la la HAPpeee music. Smiling at the guy who sits in the elevator pushing the buttons and doing his crosswords. Who's a Grumpy Gus? Not me!
Got home, put in the Hooverphonic, and realized why the cover had been so familiar.
I've not only heard this before... I've owned it.
And I have no idea what happened to my first copy.
God knows, it's probably here somewhere.
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