When In Doubt, Throw It Out!

This NY Times article on literary dealbreakers amused me. It's already the most emailed article of last weekend.

I've already mentioned my criteria for potential dates includes that they must read something. I have amended this to something other than Maxim and the paper.

It's funny though, but if you looked at what I'm keeping bookwise, it's so little that you might assume I don't read. Aside from that damn MLIS. Truthfully, most of the books I like would be really cheap to replace or are available through library ILL or consortium services. So I don't think I have to keep things anymore. Live in a place with good libraries, yes. It may be a bit of a rental economy to look at it in such a way, but I am beginning to think the rental economy isn't all that bad an idea.

Obviously, I will have to shanghai men into going to the library with me where I can play reader's advisory and impress them with my literary hots, but that's a small price to pay. And a cheap date.

On a related note, John Moe had an amusing piece on "Weekend America" about those bits and pieces of our past that we can't bear to look out or throw out. I have a lot of this. All Tom Moran's letters, writing projects from high school, the school papers my mom turned over to me, an abundance of other odds and ends. Like Moe, I can't bear to scrutinize my younger self and let it go, even if I know who I am now and how those relationships and experiences shaped me.

In other news, I have thrown out/left for the VOA/Freecycled an embarrassing amount of stuff lately. I have this vision of me and Cain in a studio apartment, (ironically, out in Arizona, studio apartments tend to be larger than my last 1 bedroom apartment and probably have a more workable layout) sitting on a bed in the sunshine while I work on the computer. Maybe I need a box, a physical but not emotional one. That way I won't be tempted by too much stuff, could learn to reign in my impulses, and couldn't substitute distractions for my real needs.

Next up? I'm going to make someone very happy with all that Tupperware my ex gave me.