I have no idea how many weeks ago I actually wrote that last post. Despite all that agonizing, it has still taken me this much longer to post my news on Facebook. I’m 67 boxes into this massive undertaking. I have thrown out or shredded bushels of paper and I have a growing mountain of stuff in the spare bedroom being saved for some mythical garage sale I am planning on having when I am back in town in March. I have things on eBay. (Anybody want an elliptical trainer? Or an antique stereoscope?)
I hate STUFF.
I am thinking nostalgically of those days when I was working in NY and living in someone’s spare closet, with only a week’s worth of clothing that needed to be schlepped to the laundry every week, but still. All other possessions digital only. Monastic. I could do that.
We’re moving back east precisely because I’ve spent so much time sleeping on theatre board members’ couches and at the Pod Hotel. But yikes! This time I’m taking my whole house with me!
Working on the clothing now. D’s is mostly all packed, except for his ties. The man must own 65 ties and I’ve only ever seen him wear two. When he moved to LA from NY originally, he could not believe that he didn’t have to wear a tie to work. He carried one in his bag every day for the first week, just in case. But he loves them, so I will carefully fold them and lay them across my dresses, promiscuously commingling our clothing in the same box.
The packing is bringing out the worst of my OCD. I mean, everything has to be organized and packed logically and efficiently. The freakin’ CDs took hours and hours of my life, and who even listens to CDs anymore? D talked me into transferring them into binders and throwing out the jewel cases, which was a really great idea because: 30 lbs or so of plastic out of my life! (But recyclable? No idea.) But the liner notes. I felt so guilty about the liner notes. Don’t I owe it to all the musicians listed, the composers and special guests, the designers and artists? I tried sliding the liner notes into the slots in the binder pages along with the CDs. Worked great, until I had 200 or so CDs in a binder that was supposed to hold 400, and it wouldn’t close. In the end, I threw out the liner notes for all the pop and rock. (Gasp. It’s still hard.) But crikey, I hadn’t looked at any of it for a hundred years, and I don’t even get liner notes anymore because I download MP3s now, so really, WTF?
Except for the musicals, though. Hence, a giant binder of rock, pop, alt, punk, jazz, etc., and a large box of musicals, still in their jewel cases, liner notes intact. I can try to be noble, but musical theatre will make a fool out of me every time.
I’m going into the bedroom to fold ties now.
