Finally, something new

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon here in Tucson, and I’m trying desperately not to take a nap. Got...to...stay...awake...(imagine Captain Kirk voice). It’s tough. The trouble with Sunday naps is that they often end up being too long, so that when I go to bed, I can’t sleep. Then I have a massive amount to get done on Monday, and I can’t seem to wake up early because I got to bed late. Maybe some of you also experience this.

So, I thought I would use this warm, sunny afternoon to write something in the old blog. Of course, the blog isn’t that old, but the last entry was getting pretty old. In fact, it may be that no one ever reads this, since anyone who was checking probably gave up several months ago. I’ll risk that in the interest of not napping.

The last entry was all about the end of autumn and bringing in the harvest, etc. Now, here we are already in March, when things start to wake up again from the winter slumber (which in Tucson is more of a short two-and-a-half week nap, speaking of naps). We missed a season, but now we’re back on track, ready to pick up the blog again. Annie and I still like to burrow down into our ground-floor apartment, but we do have to peek our noses out for things like work and school. I’m looking forward to the American Planning Association’s (also known as the APA, although that acronym is use by other organizations as well) annual conference in Las Vegas next month. This brings me to the first item of interest: the garage sale.

I consume, therefore I am?

Back in August when the Graduate Planning Society met to talk about ways to raise money to pay for our accommodations at the APA conference, I put my support behind the garage sale. I don’t remember what the other options were, but I remember that they were the typical lame fundraising strategies. I liked the garage sale idea because I could think of some things that I would contribute and because it didn’t really involve a lot of time or energy.

Well, time passed, I sold some of the stuff on craigslist, and before I knew it, it was time for the garage sale. A lot of students and several professors contributed to the offerings. We had beds, chairs (I gave my banana chair—my truest companion during the long hours of studying for the bar exam), electronics, and some huge old computer monitors and toner cartridges donated by a business that someone had a connection to. I wasn’t able to be there during the sale on Saturday, but I did meet with some other students on Friday evening to help price the stuff. It was pretty hard mental work. It seemed that I went through a sort of mental negotiation for each item, sometimes even crumpling the sticker that I had just written the price on in favor of a more appropriate price that I had arrived at in the mean time. It was the same sort of mind games that I play with myself in front of the microwave sometimes:

“30 seconds? No, it’ll still be cold in the middle. 55 seconds? That one’s easy to enter because they’re both the same number, but I’m afraid it would be too hot to eat, and it could make a mess. 40 seconds? I like it, I like it...but will it really be enough? OK, 40 seconds it is! I’m pushing the buttons...no, let make it 44 seconds—that’s easier to enter. Bingo!”

All this negotiation happens in a matter of 1 or 2 seconds.

Driving home that evening, I wondered if I had asked too much for the alarm clocks. They were quite nice, but would they sell? Enough with the price wars, already! Let it go. What I was really feeling deep down was the kind of smug, satisfied feeling that you get when you get rid of something that was cluttering your life and someone else gives you money for it. It was a kind of purging. Garage sales are a wonderful kind of purging. It’s like lightening the load and walking away with an extra bounce in your step. But it’s deeper than that. In a consumer society, it can be exhilarating to un-consume. To swim against the current. To say, “No, I’ll play by different rules!” To prove to yourself that you don’t need it. Meanwhile, all those poor dupes who show up and buy the stuff are stuck on the consumer track. Or have they bucked the system as well? It doesn’t really matter to me, as long as they load it up and take it away.

Of course, I want everyone to fulfill their civic duties. Just yesterday, I got a notice from the IRS telling me that the economic stimulus payments recently passed into law are waiting for me. I just have to file my 2007 federal income tax return, and a check will be sent to me. It’s already burning a hole in my pocket. A big problem that I see regarding the patriotic duty of every good American is that the following question remains unanswered: do garage sales count?

Of regrettable color schemes

You know when you drive by a house or building and the colors that someone chose (presumably, although sometimes you wonder if there might have been coercion involved) for the paint are just painful? Those houses with real potential lurking under a covering of paint unfit for even the most unusual Easter egg? Well, brace yourselves, Annie and I will soon live in such an edifice. The managers have chosen to replace our current white and blue color scheme with the colors of pinkish-peachish-creme, dark-tannish-orange, and spearmint green. Trust me, it sounds much better than it looks. Of course, it’s always easy to be a critic. In this case, it is extremely easy to be a critic. But don’t worry, we’ll be alright. We didn’t pick this particular apartment complex because of its aesthetic appeal. We’ll only be here a year-and-a-half longer. In the mean time, there may be some benefits to the new mind-bending color scheme. It might generate some sort of strong mental dissonance in anyone with criminal intent who approaches the place—kind of like those insect repellant devices that produce a high-frequency mixture of sound waves when you plug them in. And, who knows, maybe the colors will start to grow on me...