"Possessed" Short Documentary

Here is a very emotionally charged video made by Martin Hampton about people and their clutter. I almost wish it were longer.


POSSESSED from Martin Hampton on Vimeo.

Via BackGarage

What are your reactions? For those of you not affected by such clutter in your own lives, what were your thoughts as you saw and then heard about these people's struggles (assuming you watched it :P)? For those of you with clutter, did it hit home at all?

Search and Destroy

Or: Search and De-clutter. That might work better for our purposes. Anyway, here's a technique I've found that helps me a lot in de-cluttering. I never really formed it as a complete thought until somebody posted about clutter in the Livejournal community ourbedrooms.

Tip: If your project seems overwhelming, take it one step at a time. This seems so basic, and it's hard to actually put into practice because you see the mess every day, and every time you think about it, it seems like this monster undertaking that could never possibly get done by doing small pieces of it. However, I find that I make a lot of progress by identifying a single area in a room that has been bothering me in particular, and tackling it.

For example, we couldn't open our front door all the way, like I mentioned the other day. That bugged me a lot. The door was blocked by my mom's wire shelving unit where we stored paper products. I looked around the living room, which has been my main de-cluttering project lately, to find a place I could relocate the shelves to. I cleared out a spot, then made the change. At the same time, I was organizing and not simply moving the clutter around, because I dumped all the paper stuff out and reordered it based on category.

Now our lovely door gets the swing space it needs and, while it still doesn't open all the way, it's a really nice and refreshing change. A helpful one, too, since I don't have to do acrobatics to get all my trash/recycling out the door anymore!

So try the "this bugs me" method and see how far you get! If you have any of your own techniques, feel free to comment and tell me about them!

Wall-E

Tonight I saw Wall-E! I wish I could say everything about it that I want to, but I don't want to spoil it. Especially since I highly recommend it and I want you to see it for yourself! It was heart-wrenching in ways I did not expect, and, from my nerdy linguistic perspective, possibly involved some fun phonology and voice-recognition research on the sound guys' parts. Phonology is so far my least favorite sub-field because it makes no sense and all the experts on it seem to disagree, but voice-recognition is super interesting.

Anyway, for reasons I won't give away, the movie got me thinking about downward spirals.

Not only is it painfully easy to get into a rut with clutter, but it's even easier to dig yourself deeper into it as the problem gets worse. You delude yourself and run away from the problem whatever way you can - the movie has a very interesting portrayal of escapism - whether it's psychologically acclimating to the messy home or just physically spending less time in what should be your safe haven. Or, sometimes, despair wiggles its way in and masquerades as your solution, causing you to lose all hope and just live in a completely and unacceptably unhealthy situation.

For me, I suppose, this threat of impending hopelessness is what drives me to make my life better. I wish I could have something different to motivate me, something more positive, but it is what it is. And after all, if it gets me to clear out closets, clean under the bed, and pawn off my possessions to strangers, that's something.

Watch the trailer for Wall-E here.

Update on Freecycle

Lookee here for yesterday's post on Freecycle.

So today I released three of my clunky possessions to the wind that is one Ms. R.L., who had responded last night to my Freecycle post. And now I have one experience with Freecycle! Here is what I think.

• I'm definitely glad that the Yahoo group has rules set down and tips for your freecycling needs. They're very concerned about your safety, which is great, considering that things are picked up from you by strangers and it's all done through the Internet up to that point. In fact, I felt a little relieved when R.L. e-mailed, because I recognized her last name as that of someone who currently goes to my old high school.


• The community is the perfect size. There are about 5,000 members in my area, the East San Francisco Bay Area, so that's just enough to get a solid number of responses, but not too many that it's not overwhelming. I think I got a total of 6 or 7 offers to take the ab machine off my hands, and 2 for the pillows. Perfect! Also, I got absolutely no unsolicited e-mails from anyone about stupid, irrelevant things. I can't say the same for Craigslist, where I posted my resume the other day. :(


• I expected the worst: a) R.L would be late/not show up; b) she would not be R.L. at all but a homicidal maniac who had been planning to kidnap me for months and was finally going to succeed; or c) some other bad thing. So I made sure to keep in contact with her (she was an hour late) over the phone (we only exchanged numbers over e-mail when the deal was confirmed), saying that I wanted to reschedule if she was going to be by after dark. Luckily, she arrived around 6:15, and it was not dark. Of course, it was smoky, but certainly light.
       She was a little weird, with a van packed full of clutter (see point below), some of which she had just bought. Her demeanor was friendly but definitely odd, and she struck up a conversation with me about her need to exercise, and whether I, since I'm "small" (I'm not), liked this little black PJ top she had just gotten. I scurried away and thanked her for taking the stuff off my hands. o.o


• When I was telling my friend (tommykat39) about the site and deal this morning, she thought it wasn't a good idea because it essentially meant that clutter was just being passed around and around. I said that it wasn't the offerers' problem, just the takers' problem. Interesting that I got a fellow clutterer my first time. What do you think? Should transactions be better screened so that hoarders don't do themselves worse? Or is it solely their problem for indulging in more clutter?

Sites I Like #6: Freecycle.org

Ok I know I like JUST did a Site I Like, but this one is actually helping me in my progress! I'm giddy right now.

Today's site: FreeCycle.org



This is a .org site, but the part of it that I'm making the best use out of is the Yahoo group for my area. Basically, it's a very well-run organization of people pawning off the crap they don't want, and for free. There's no trading, no adult themes, and no money involved. Also, there's no worries about clogging those landfills or making some epic trek to a specialty recycling center. If you've got something that works but that you no longer want, you send an e-mail to the list serve (with title tags such as OFFER, WANTED [they prefer you don't use this one much], TAKEN [for completed "offer" transactions], and RECEIVED [for completed "wanted" transactions]) and interested parties e-mail you back.

Around 5 p.m. today, I put up two posts: one offering this stupid old floor ab machine (like the one at the bottom of this picture), and one offering two body pillows I don't want anymore. By the time I got home from a crepe outing tonight at 9:30, I had four replies - one for both posts, two more for the ab machine, and one for the pillows (it read: "i am interested in your pillows." Nothing more.). As I type here, I'm simultaneously making arrangements with the first woman who replied to have the items picked up. She's the one who wanted everything, and I suspect she is a compulsive/impulsive shopper, but that is fine with me, since it gets rid of my stuff for me haha.

We'll see how it goes! I'm excited to get rid of more crap and brighten somebody else's day. :)