Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2004-07-24 - 1:25 p.m.

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I am soooo determined today to throw things out. Out! Out, I tell you! I'm drowning in stuff again. Well, not again. I never stopped drowning in stuff. But for some reason it's been bothering me more recently. This stuff must GO!

Okay, not all the stuff. Some of the stuff. The bad stuff. That red plastic recorder that's not tuned, the one I used to sample the acrylic paint colors when I painted my sister's recorder - that's bad stuff. That can go. Out, damn recorder!

Here's a bumper sticker that I don't like and anyway it's got a crease in the middle. I want to put some stickers on the van, but I can't do that until I wash and wax it, and I don't think I would put that sticker on it because it's kind of ugly. Not really ugly, I could use it, but kind of ugly. Okay - get fierce. Out, damn bumper sticker!

Everything else is good stuff. Wait - there's a cookie sheet! A bad cookie sheet! Except that it's a good art tray. Bad cookie sheet, decent art tray. Not a good art tray really, because it has no edges on three sides, but then, that comes in handy sometimes too. And it has some papers on it, I think they're the ones that Younger Daughter was using to make stickers out of bottled goop, and I don't know if she finished the bottled goop or if she wants to make more stickers with it.

What about this plastic wall socket plate? Is that good? Where did it COME from and why is it sitting on my work table? You can't be throwing things out if you don't even know why you have them in the first place, can you? Is there a wall socket in this house waiting for a plastic cover? Better hang onto THAT. That three-legged model horse, too, because when I find the fourth leg I'm supposed to glue it back on. Usually I tape the broken part to the horse before I throw it in the "to glue" pile, but I can't find my tape because someone ran off with it to tape scarves to my furniture to make Barbie rooms.

I'm humming now, though. I can feel it. I'm out of control - everything must go. I'm marauding. I'm ruthless. There! That! That box of self-adhesive cove molding that falls off ten minutes after application! Of course, that's thirty dollars' worth of cove molding and I thought perhaps I could NAIL the shit on instead, because I have plenty of these carpet-tack sorts of things that would work nicely and if I put them high enough up on the molding you won't see them unless you are on your hands and knees cleaning under the cabinets, and who would do THAT? So maybe I should keep it. I don't know. I'll think about it.

What about this stupid Barney sleeping bag? As much as Older Daughter loved Barney, I don't think I could get her to sleep in that bag again at gunpoint. And another sleeping bag, or blanket, or throw would be the LAST thing we need around this place. Not even for making forts. We have enough blankets to make a fort out of this entire condominium complex (if we could only find the tape). But - you know how your mother threw out all your old baseball cards, the ones that would be worth millions if you had them today, and they weren't even really hers to throw away but she did it anyway, consigning you to work forty hours a week forever when you could be drinking a latte and checking e-bay to see if that one card had met its ten thousand dollar reserve yet? I don't want to be that kind of mother. I don't want the kid to grow up and see a Barney sleeping bag on Antiques Roadshow and discover it's my fault that she has to has to drink her lattes on the car on the way to work.

Oh God, I'm hopeless.

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