04 May 2010

I will not be a hoarder

Remember that time when you aimed to be terribly productive, but didn't really want to do anything important? Welcome to Tuesday evening. In my current little hovel, I have all that is most precious to me: books, yarn, skinny clothes that no one (least of all me) thought I'd ever wear again, and ten years' worth of Metropolitan Home. Uh huh. Some people would save a favorite pet, perhaps even a child from a burning building. Me? I'd evidently take shelter magazines. To prove to myself that I will not become a sad old woman living with her 42 cats (23 of them still alive), tonight I completed a little project. In preparation, I had spent several moments hours days going through each issue, remembering fondly where I was when I first fell in love with Shamir Shah, or that I could use live succulents to create a vertical wall garden, or how someday I'd have a very narrow, tall Japanese soaking tub. Good times.

But ruthlessness was called for. I put a little post-it note on each page I needed to keep, sometimes a single image, more often an entire article, as well as several recipes (remember homemade ketchup? MetHome, people). This might be a good time to mention that I got teary when I learned MetHome folded last winter. Tonight I culled, cut, and curated, and now have three folders of valuable inspiration and resources for a future home. Good for me. Bad for the producers of Hoarding: Buried Alive.

5 comments:

  1. Sometime I'll have to have you over and show you the special files I bought from Muji in Paris to contain all the articles and recipes I spent days cutting out of Real Simple, as an essential activity of preparing my move back to the U.S.

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  2. I step into this discussion tentatively, and with enduring gratitude for the tight camera angle of your photo.

    I think we could all agree that anyone with a subscription to the New Yorker magazine is exempt from the harsh (or parenthetically draconian) rules of squalor seen on "Hoarding: Buried Alive."

    The New Yorker brings us witty comics, the clarity of Hendrik Hertzberg's progressive political expression, the wonderful minds of Atul Gawande and Oliver Sacks, plus ads for things I never knew I needed.

    I'm unable (unable, I tell you) to get rid of a New Yorker until I've read it. Not cover-to-cover, not every single word, but, you know, paged through and dipped in.

    And so I admit I'm a little backed up on the New Yorkers. I'm thinking it makes me look smart.

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  3. I just did this with my tupperware bin of Martha Stewart Livings (yes I read and enjoy Martha's editorial staff) It was more of a tear out the recipes and shove them into a binder kind of day.

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  4. You need to move on to Architectural Digest. It is so wonderful .I have some from this year if you would like.

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  5. I'm of two minds. Okay, three.

    First, I'm unable to get rid of a New Yorker until I've read it. Not cover-to-cover, not every single word, but, you know, paged through and dipped in. And so I admit I'm a little backed up on the New Yorkers. I'm thinking it makes me look smart.

    (It's true. And according to a student in my 1st hour class, since I didn't copy the whole original piece from Deb, I wasn't plagiarizing. Right? How dare you call my parents.)

    Second, I did the whole binder of house ideas deal before building. It's essential. Well done, Scott.

    Finally, I admit to having an always growing pile of pulled pages, mostly from catalogues, stacked neatly in a drawer. All the emotional satisfaction of shopping, none of the expense. Sometimes I take them out and look through them, just to see the pretty. I have a feeling your new binders are stuffed with the pretty. Enjoy.

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As always, civility reigns, but cleverness trumps.

They shall be called my disciples.