declutter like a mom who just read about Swedish Death Cleaning and is now obsessed with making you decide which things you want to have when she dies in 30+ years

Like a gazillion other people in the northern hemisphere, I'm in "spring cleaning" mode. One teetering step from it, more accurately. While many are purging their closets and junk drawers and pantries, I am reading articles and blog posts, hoping they can push me over the edge of my painful limbo of procrastination and into their world of sparkling fulfillment. Ten Weird Tricks to Give Away All of Your Dead Grandmother's China and Not Feel Even a Little Sad About It! Decluttering Is *Actually* As Fun As Disneyland! Make Your Japandi Dreams Come True By Creating a Capsule Wardrobe! Just Throw Things Into the Trash, Coward.

Please, O People who Professionally Organize, I want my living room to feel cozy, my kitchen to be organized, my bathroom to be clean, my laundry to blah blah yard blah basement blahhhhh, etc! I want to enter any room in my house and feel relaxed and/or rejuvenated! And, oh, how my hands yearn to pick things up and put them down again--possibly back into the exact same space, but also possibly into a box! Or put them in a different room that I will clean later but can ignore for now!

So what is stopping my grubby little gremlin hands from picking through my belongings like I'm my own heir? Why, I'll tell you! There are both literal and figurative obstacles in my way! Each obstacle adds like 20 lbs of emotional labor. Example: I need boxes and bags to put things in. This means I must find boxes and bags. It *also* means that I must consider the fact that the bags and boxes will need to go somewhere until I can donate them--or put them a different place until the yard sale at my parents' house in June. Emotional lifting calculation: find boxes, 20 lbs; put boxes in either place 1 or 2, depending, 40 lbs; Is that all? That seems doable! WHY, NO, FRIEND. No, my living room is currently overpopulated with things that are for actual projects. I have three huge rolls of reed fencing for the front yard that I need to put up, a few huge boxes containing the parts of a new toilet*, and a disassembled air purifier waiting for the new filters that were scheduled to be delivered yesterday. Having to even think about this: 1000000000 lbs. 

Is that all? Because that seems difficult but surmountable! Goodness gracious, no, because now we get to the good stuff; the raw, emotional shit that HGTV eats up like a raccoon who pried the lid off a restaurant dumpster. 

I look at my bookcases and have an identity crisis. 

one of the two living room bookcases & "my office" art corner
in the name of journalistic integrity, I did no zhuzhing for this photo

Sure, there are many books I will never read again. And, yes, there are a couple I have not read. And yes, you got me, there are books that I found mediocre but look good on my shelves (demonstrating my bona fides, as it were). I'm a "book person." I went to school for six years to study books. So when I think about really going for it and trimming the proverbial fat, I picture the end result: the formerly overflowing built-in shelves now awkwardly blemished by empty spaces, books slumping diagonally, the whole scene giving off an air of successful public library/personal embarrassment. How can I be expected to enjoy a more dust-free, well-organized home when both id and ego crave the limited floor space and intellectual superiority of a secondhand bookstore? It's simply not fair!

Obviously, it will be good to go through everything. I don't need a coffee table book about Hamilton (the musical),** or two copies of Midnight in Chernobyl,*** or any copies of Asterios Polyp.**** But what if I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night because I realize I gave away something truly special--like the copy of Geek Love that was signed with a really lovely personal note from Katherine Dunn after I had her as a workshop professor, which got lost in a donation pile right before our move from the UK back to Portland in 2015 (I will never get over this. Someone in Oxford has this book on their shelf right now)? What if I give away one of my random issues of Granta only to find out a year from now that it has a poem in it I've been looking for, and because Granta is a lit mag and not a book that can be reprinted or downloaded as an ebook, it now costs a bajillion dollars and no one is selling it and I can never read that poem again? I told you the emotional lifting was going to be bonkers. How many pounds are we up to? I've intentionally lost count.

Some people are good at purging. I am the person who does a purge and then laments (seriously, forever) donating that pair of cyan pedal pushers or the amazing Jurassic Park t-shirt from Primark. Do I want to end up hoarding "but what if...?" treasures, screaming "MY PRECIOUS!!!!!", Smeagol-style, every time I take a box of sweaters and old dishes to Goodwill? I do not want to do that. I do not want to be a weird cave-dwelling eel hobbit. I want people to come into my house and think "Wow, this is very cozy!" and "The overall decor does low-key suggest a witch might live here, but, like, the nice kind!" and "This gal probably makes a delicious and hearty vegetable soup!'" and "The person who owns this house has very aesthetic and well-curated bookshelves!" So if Martha Stewart or The Spruce or Apartment Therapy could write an encouraging post or two on how to declutter if you're a cottagecore queen with 1960s suburban mom levels of anxiety, that might actually be helpful. 

If I figure it out before they do, I'll let you know. 

*This should be taken care of tomorrow! ...BUT WHERE WILL THE OLD TOILET GO??? Until we take it to the dump, that is, because I don't think it's worth donating. We wouldn't have bought a new toilet if it was. It will probably live in the backyard until we can do a dump run, which we need to do, because there's a lot of post-home improvement related trash in our backyard. In fact, this will bring the number of defunct toilets in our backyard to two. Classy.

** Why do I have this?? I can tell you with 100% certainty that I did not buy this, but I doubt whoever gave it to me is going to come over, look around my house, and wonder "hey, what did she do with that 5000000 page coffee table book about the hit musical Hamilton?"

***My grandpa sent me a copy because he liked it so much! I already had a copy at home, though, so now I have two. It's a really good book, btw. Highly recommend.

****One of those "bona fides" books I mentioned. I thought it was way more mediocre than everyone else I know who read it, but having it on my shelf demonstrates that I did read it when it came out, and I have an opinion about it, which could be important if you're having literary types over to your house. But I don't have people over to my house, so why do I feel the need to keep it?? Aside: no shade if you liked it. I will generally not shame a person for their taste in books. 

tv thoughts

Has anyone written a thesis/monograph/treatise/very good blog post on the relationships of fathers and sons in good television? Because it seems like there are very few exceptions--especially when the show is from the POV of the son--to the Dysfunctional Relationship rule. Doesn't matter if it's a comedy or a drama. It's the Year of Our Lord 2025, guys! It's not just Boomers and Xers making TV! Millennials, are we ok?? And will Zedders, too, fall victim to the Is It Even Possible for Adult Sons to Have Good Relationships With Their Fathers problem? Or will they break the cycle?! And are father/son relationships actually usually very complicated?? Or do complicated relationships just happen to Venn diagram real well with guys who end up in writers rooms? I don't know, as I am not a son, nor have I ever been in a tv writers room. For the sake of equality, when will moms get the chance to be villains?*

 
Fathers & daughters is also interesting, because--unless the girl is a teen who hates both parents, generally--those tend to be Functional (dare I say Good?) Relationships. This, I have both observed and can speak to from experience.

*(Without the implications or literal conveyance of mental illness being the cause. Because I guess mothers can only be bad if they are extremely mentally ill and unmedicated? This seems like both a compliment and a deep insult. Like you can be mentally ill and a good mom, but you can't be a bad mom without mental illness. Or you can be a shitty stepmom, I guess, but that tends to come with additional Father Issues, or is a Result of Misunderstanding/Lack of Communication and she's not actually bad. I think I'm getting off topic. My proposed focus of research was specifically Fathers, not Parents! Parents introduce far too many variables.) 

(And, yes, I'm sure you can do a great job and list some tv shows where these rules do not apply, bully for you, but I maintain that well done tv overwhelmingly falls into these categories.)

(One last thought, though: Taken ((or something in that vein. I've never seen Taken, so I'm going off vibes here)), but starring a woman. My dad would absolutely do everything to find me, no question, but mom would go full mid-winter mama bear. Dad's distracting the kidnappers with metaphorical flares, á la Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, while mom is absolutely John Wicking it around town. Dramatic version, based on my parents: dad played by Kyle Maclachlin, mom played by Molly Ringwald. Comedic version: Steve Carell, and... Actually, you know who I think would be great? Marisa Tomei. She does funny + extremely competent really well, and she's only 5'3"! My mom is 5' tall, and maintaining her shortness is v important in comedy.

(ACTUAL last thought: Yes, I could google this to see if someone has written about it. In fact, I will probably do that right after I post this. Will I be satisfied by what I find? It's possible, but unlikely. And yet, I will do it, because I can tell that's what you're about to do, and I don't want the grumps of the bunch finding me and telling me that there is actually a paper and that I'm so dumb because I could have just googled it. I know I can google it. But if I had googled it before writing this, I probably wouldn't have written this, and you who are the grumps would not have had the chance to think to yourself "Hm, that's interesting." Instead, you'd be reading the ten-page research paper/lit review I would have been compelled to write. So I hope you appreciate this wonderful gift I have given you. Though it be not the gift of knowledge, per say, it is surely the gift of inquiry.) <You turn your head to look up from your computer, but I have vanished. After a moment of bewilderment, you nod appreciatively. Such wisdom, such grace. "Yeah," you say aloud. "I should write more blog posts before researching them at all. Thanks, Czuba--you've done it again." I pop back out of thin air and make sure to clarify that, actually, you usually SHOULD do research before saying anything. Like, no hot takes. Don't do that. Only nice, cold takes. Things that are mildly interesting, at best. Seriously. "Got it." We high-five. I disappear again. "You've done it again, again, Czuba" Yes, my child. I have done it again, again.>

may 22 - having spider feelings when I could be putting groceries away

I had to squish two spiders today. They were the very scary kind, and they were hanging out in very inconvenient, non-cup-coverable places, but I hate killing spiders. 

I wasn't afraid of them when I was a kid. One of my great aunts was a teacher and had many animals at her house--these most memorably including a small horse and a tarantula. You can bet your butt that I held that strangely delicate eight-legged chonk.* No fear. I remember thinking it was pretty cool, and strange that anyone would find it scary.

Around this age (nine, I think?) I regularly read the stories and histories of a ton of different mythologies, including (as was popular in the 90's, I think) plenty of Greek myths.** The story of Arachne stuck in my tender, impressionable, little kid heart--I was sad for Arachne, and disappointed by my previously favorite Greek goddess, Athena.*** So for my whole childhood, I was dedicated to the scoop-and-release method of dealing with spiders, because I knew it was cruel (and bad luck) to kill a spider.

Then I hit my mid-teen years. I developed an OCD/BP-II paranoia that they--the spiders native to and well acquainted with my basement bedroom--would crawl into any and every orifice my body if whatever pre-sleeping conditions weren't met.**** Not pleasant. Very bad for quality of sleep.

But still: the guilt. Through all those/these years, the guilt remains. The spiders I squished today were truly terrifying (one was still small but had that huge abdomen that makes your brain scream "POISON. BAD." and the other one was big and long and very dark black and looked like a smaller version of the ones I used to see in my bedroom), but both my kid and suspicious brain spaces get upset with me for being cruel and tempting fate to cash in on the bad luck. 

I hope the fact that I apologize to them every time makes it a little more ok. It probably doesn't. Why couldn't the Greek origin story be swapped with Actaeon, where he gets turned into a spider instead of a stag and is happily stepped on by Artemis, leading to early artistic renditions of Big Lady, Please Steppy? There are plenty of other insects that use thread. Make the weaving story about silk worms or something. Everybody loves silk worms! They make nice, soft things. Sigh.

All that aside: for better or worse, I can't blame this dumb week on bad spider luck; pretty confident I didn't do any arachnicide on Monday. It's been a real long week, and it's only 3pm on Wednesday. Although it was already a long week by Monday afternoon, sooooo    ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

*I also saw Newsies for the first time at her house! Very formative trip.

**see: Disney's 1997 animated film Hercules

***And I think we all read at least one book about Anansi/Ananse, right? Everyone's so into Loki. Loki is overrated. Let's get an Anansi show.

****The bedbug breakdown of 2007--no actual bedbugs were involved, but I thought they were--happened when I was in college. Same bedroom, coincidentally. This one was arguably worse. Hotel rooms and I still have quite the complicated relationship.

apr 22 - some good ol' Monday intensity for you

My (arguably) most sympathetic pedantic annoyance is the use of a country's name instead of country's government. China can't spy on you. The Chinese government* can, or can pay private businesses to do it for them, but neither the geography nor the entire population is responsible for the government's choices. Remember how sad we liberals got when people said "Americans" during the Bush years?** It's the Government! we cried. It's less than half of the country, we promise! We're not villains!*** Sometimes even: Oh! No, I'm Canadian.

A country is neither a hero nor a villain. A country is full of individuals, as we USAers know very well. A government gets to make these consequential choices. If we're lucky, we get to vote for the people who make up the government that makes these choices (even then, things can be dicey, see *** again). Not every group of people in a specific geographic area is so fortunate. Some people can't vote because of access, and some can't vote because there are no elections. Some people can vote, but their ballot box is a trash can. Some people in some countries are killed just for existing, or protest their hearts out for what is right at their own peril. These people are not spying on us, or selling arms to other governments for use TBD. The Uyghur farmer in NW China is not going to be hacking TikTok; they are busy surviving.

We can still vote, and we have free speech. Despite many people's inclination to apparently not use these rights respectfully, this is an easy one, guys. 

I slip up sometimes, too. It's really difficult not to repeat the phrases we hear from politicians, journalists, podcasters, family members, etc. again and again. But we've changed our linguistic habits for the better many times before, and I think we can do it now. Mentally separating individuals from some faceless, threatening force can offer a lot of room for empathy, and rare is the person with too much empathy.

Oh, and Happy Earth Day!  Enjoy whatever (un)seasonable weather you've got going on over there! Not gettin' into any of those feelings right now! Too much for one day! Wooooo! 

*in case applying this political statement to this particular government is personally damaging in the future, we'll note that our government is allowed--by "temporary"/still standing order--to do the same. 
**oh, hey, speaking of that spying-on-citizens situation...
***Please! The electoral college and Supreme Court are outdated and have a bloated amount of power! It's not us! It's /sigh/ not us. (Don't get it twisted: I was--and continue to be--one of these people. Hopefully this, too, is not personally damaging in the future. November 2024 approacheth all too quickly.)

april 5 - no damn fine beverages allowed, though

Picture yourself entering a small indoor pool. The light from a few high windows mixes with the fluorescent overheads and color of the water to give the whole space a green glow. Your fellow swimmers are three octogenarians chatting and treading water in one lane and a middle-aged man swimming breast stroke with a snorkel in the other. A lifeguard in her early 20s sits opposite from all, looking small in her safety gear. Empty bleachers, save for a single woman in a red swimsuit and blue cap, hoping someone will leave early so she can take her turn.

Now imagine this scene, but subtract the classic public-pool-aquarobics pop music coming through the speakers. Replace it with the Twin Peaks theme.

This is a true story. The lifeguard played the whole Twin Peaks soundtrack while we were swimming. It was the best pool day of my adult life.

mar 28 - easter meats

The common practice of eating lamb for Easter dinner (which we did only once during my childhood, fortunately) has always made me a little squeamish. Setting aside the eating of a baby animal, which I very much do not enjoy, it's like getting both mouthfuls of the Eucharist at once. You barely need to transubstantiate a lamb. Blegh.

Actually, continuing the supper thoughts, eating Easter ham is pretty weird, too. Given the practiced religion of our good boy Jesus, it is probably the least Christ-approved of the mammalian dinner meats.

I propose a change to loaves and fishes, because it is referential without being horrifying, can be enjoyed by a majority of diets, and is great for your cholesterol.

mar 18 - a comic, and an unnecessarily long introduction only tangentially related

 I drew this a few months ago (obviously based on a dream I had last October) and submitted it to one online journal, but they didn’t take it, and I don’t have the patience nor the desire to go shopping it around places. Why do that when I have a blog? Publishing in lit mags has always been such a thing that it’s easy to forget: it’s unnecessary. A lit mag is just a group of people with a ~*fancy*~ blog (sometimes a blog printed on paper!) who find things they like to read and share them with those of a like mind. It’s cool! It’s fun to read a curated list of stories and comics! It feels pretty great to get published by tastemakers! But if I were trying to write/do art for the money, I would be doing an embarrassingly poor job of it. Self-publishing is as old as wheat receipts on clay tablets, and I have the ability to blast pamphlets like Thomas Paine. That’s maybe a bit of a forced metaphor, but I enjoy the sound of the sentence, and—as this is my blog—I do not have to edit for time nor clarity. 

All of this is to say: here’s a comic I wrote. I might post more stuff like this. We make our own tastes here. *maintains direct eye contact, puts on sunglasses*