Imagine no possessions!

"Everybody's movin'
if they ain't already there.
Everybody got to move
somewhere
Stick with me baby
Stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting
right about now."
--- bob dylan, 'mississippi'

I would like to state for the record that it took me only 2 1/2 hours to pack.

That's right. I waited until the last minute (hello) and although I am leaving for New York tomorrow and I started packing around 9 p.m. tonight, I will still get a full night's sleep. That, my friends, is the glorious result of shedding extraneous crap.

I have really been enjoying my new hobby of selling my books on Half.com. I love seeing what people will buy, and what they will pay for it. I really love getting rid of some of my books. So far I have sold about 10-15% of my books through that site. I even like sitting here at the computer packaging them up to ship while listening to music and chatting with friends on-line. At first I used padded envelopes, but I quickly realized that the cost of those bubble envelopes almost erased any profit I'd make. (Half.com reimburses for shipping, a flat rate, but those envelopes are like $1.40, so when you're selling books for $2 you don't want to spend $1.40 just on the envelope!)

Then I remembered when we used to have to cover our textbooks in elementary school, particularly in SAGE (the gifted education program). Those who were there, remember how obsessed Mrs. Muscato was with making us cover our books at the beginning of the year? We had to take them home and cover them with a brown paper grocery bag. But it totally worked. Brilliant, thought I, I will wrap my Half.com books in grocery bags to send them out, thus recycling the bags and packaging for free. So far, no complaints, and buyers have reported that the books arrived in good condition. Excellent!

As for what I haven't sold, I am bequeathing my remaining possessions to my friend Liza's production's garage sale fundraiser or else to my roommates here at the house (the futon, for example). The entirety of what I am moving can fit into a compact car, and so it shall when I drive it down to Long Island.

And speaking of that, Hofstra has placed me in housing! I have received my official housing assignment in one of the grad student/professional on-campus complexes.

I haven't started my homework yet, though.

I was so productive today! I did laundry, talked to friends, sold some books for quick cash in hand at used bookstores in Cambridge, watched the end of the Red Sox loss, etc...not to mention packing in under three hours!

A parting thought, from one of the books I sent out today, If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino:

"Renouncing things is less difficult than people believe: it's all a matter of getting started. Once you've succeeded in dispensing with something you thought essential, you realize you can also do without something else, then without many other things. So here I am walking along this empty surface that is the world."

Mass-ive

A busy week lies ahead.

I have many, many things to do before I leave this glorious House on Orchard Street for parts only slightly known: Hofstra, Hempstead, Long Island, New York...and at long last the study of law.

My current reflections:

1. If I drink iced tea there, will I be tempted to call it a long island iced tea? (You know, just to annoy people.)

2. It only occurred to me this weekend that if I switch my residency including, for example, voter registration, then Hillary will be my senator!!! Hello! Clearly I will be doing that. I'm long since over the Special K twins (Kennedy & Kerry) from Smashachusetts.

And on that note, I have been thinking a bit about departing Massachusetts - again. Obviously, this place has become home over the past almost-four years, even/especially while I was in Korea. I'm delighted that it all worked out for me to have this little summer of fond farewell back at the Medford house with the girls. It has been a summer of much reflection -- a little too much, maybe -- and contending with all the logistical and emotional issues of life. There has been no shortage of either!

I have also rather enjoyed being unemployed and I highly recommend it. : ) My temp jobs have been great, and I love that they are temporary. I defnintely know in a way I never knew for sure before that I would be exquisitely happy working only from home. I would write and free-lance and enjoy the blessed Internet for making such a life ridiculously easy if I could only get someone on the other end to pay me for my words. But first I am going to law school.

This last weekend in Massachusetts I spent as a volunteer crew member on the Mass Red Ribbon Ride. It's a bike ride across the state, from Pittsfield to the Boston suburbs, that benefits several AIDS organizations. You may recall I used to volunteer at AIDS Action Committee when I lived here before, and when I returned to Mass. this June I was a bit late to train for and do the ride, but crew -- that I could do. So, I went out to the western reaches of the State on Friday and slept on the floor in a camp cabin (night 1) and a high school gymnasium (night 2) with other riders and crew and woke up at 4:45 a.m. and spent the days shuttling back and forth along the route looking for ailing or injured riders, working pit stops, and so on. I have a lot more to say about it, but no time to do so right now.

I will spend the next five days packing as few earthly possessions as possible and getting rid of as many as possible.

My list of things to do is large and it looms...

At the Ready

"This is your voice of reason, this is your voice of calm, this is your heart that's saying don't look back just keep on going..." mcc

Hasta la victoria siempre!

Oh. My. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fidel Castro is having surgery. He's temporarily HANDING OVER POWER to his brother Raul Castro.

Many of you will understand exactly why and how this affects me as it does.

Conveniently, Dubya is in Miami and has recently announced plans to have a transition team in place to bring democracy to Cuba when Castro goes...

That W. is an evil, evil thing.

God help us all.

And if you ain't got 'em, you hit rock bottom!

Smoke 'em if you got 'em...or not, eh! Get this. The illustrious Marriott corporation has announced that all of its U.S. and Canada hotels will become entirely smoke-free as of this October.

Huh?!

That's everywhere, in every hotel. Every Marriott, every Residence Inn, every Fairfield, every Courtyard...every every one. That is mind-blowing to me.

First of all, because it's so all-encompassing. Secondly, because it's so bold. Clearly the non-smokers' voices have spoken louder than the smokers'. (Understandably so, as the smokers probably are a little raspy with a cough and whatnot.) Particularly interesting to note is that it's just the U.S. and Canada -- this still won't fly in Europe and Asia, is the message I get.

I don't know, man. I shake my head at things like this. I know some people passionately believe this is the direction the world is going and those who light up need to either jump on the train or get the hell out of the way - but do extinguish your cigarettes first, as there is likely no longer a smoking car!

I was a smoker. I quit. I am very, very proud of my quit, as it turns out. I barely ever even think about having a cigarette, and that only happens when I'm conversing about cigs with a friend smoking in front of me. I never have dreams about smoking anymore. I have made my 1000 days and then some. I have in fact just passed my 40-month anniversary. I think my new goal might be to go as long without smoking as I smoked (roughly nine years as a habit, though it was off-and-on the first year or two).

But I just don't care if other people smoke at the Marriott Hotel.

Or in a restaurant. Or bar. Or CASINO for criminy sakes. Or in the airport, or at the bus stop, or in a box, or with a fox...well, OK, maybe with a fox, because smoking with a fox would be just plain weird. But seriously -- any-bloody-where in front of me! Don't care! I've thought about what it would be like to care. I can get passionately worked up about so many things that you'd think I could get worked up about this one. Alas, no.

In fact, the last time I stayed at a Marriott Hotel, I even let the smokers smoke in my non-smoking room sometimes. Aren't I a troublemaker! Whatever, they smoked out the window. I was more upset when they broke a glass on the carpet, hello.

The point is -- hmm, what is the point? That I suffer from apathy? They say there's nothing worse than a reformed drunk. (And I might be testing out that theory soon!) But apparently the reformed smoker thing is not the same.

I recently watched the movie Thank You For Smoking and I thought it was hilarious! Fantastic! Sarcastic and witty and intelligent and no-holds-barred and packed a punch and -- the best thing about it -- it took on both sides of the debate. It pointed out some of the obnoxious qualities and fallacies of those on both sides. I mean, it definitely made its anti-tobacco-company-politics point. But it was not sanctimonious about it. I think that's the worst thing about all the anti-smokers: they're so holier-than-thou! I think possibly more so than any other issue. I love that we are allowed to have a "debate" about the merits of war -- war! War!! Literally killing people with the stated goal of killing people with no pleasure or particularly social aspect and definitely expensive and takes a toll on our resources and the healthcare industry and so on...yeah, war is all right. But smoking? How could you even suggest it's not the worst thing ever? Oh, no.

I wish more of the smoking debate were like Thank You For Smoking.

Greener Valleys

A rainy evening. The thunder and downpour erupted over Davis Square as I left 'Orleans' grill to head for my bus. Dozens of commuters huddled under the safety of the station and busway roofs, cell phones blazing in an effort to rustle up rides home through the squall. I found my roommate on the bus and we rode home, amused by the storm. When we crossed the street after disembarking, the rain flooding the gutters rushed my ankles with such force it swept away one of my flip-flops and I had to chase it a few yards down Winthrop Street.

Things flood us from time to time.

Now we sit in the darkened living room, purple-gray evening outside, and white-gray electronic glow inside. My roommate is watching War of the Worlds and I am catching up with far-flung people.

When some of the things currently swirling around my head and heart are resolved, I will encourage you to revisit this blog entry. I feel an aching in my chest right now that matches the sweltering night--sheets and desk and wood floors hot to the touch, but the tones and colors of the night all shades of cool. My inner turmoil mirrors that. Hot and cold is just the surface.

There's news of cancer, breakdown, a breakup, betrayal, moving, seeking, financial strain, interpersonal strain, heartsickness, a fuzzy haze, powder, prayer, departures to foreign lands, and desperate attempts to stick around...and those are just the ones I am allowed to write about. There are so many people's stories who are not mine to tell. But we flow into each other, don't we?

I promise it will make more sense when I can detail it all, after I can process it all. Today I watch the rain flood my neighborhood and my world and I think about us all under a sky that at any time can pour itself upon us with no thought to what we need. Or what we heed, come to think of it.

What it is, is, we find people in this world in a variety of ways. We connect to them through the great tapestry in a variety of ways, and sometimes we find them later, much later, when we didn't know they were coming. Other times we find them too early, and we're not ready, or we don't think we're ready. Who can be ready for a storm like this, though?

And then at the end of it all life, squelched for a time, can breathe, replenished, rejuvenated.

Meanwhile, my Indigo Girls run through my head:

"I'm heading back to the flatlands, and you're heading up to the hills
The rain brings you home in the middle of July.
I guess I just got lonesome, when I think about how you feel,
with six months gone and no one to dry your eyes.
I said nuevas senoritas, are you gone to brighter days?
Have you found your greener valleys?
and the place where your heart lays?"

-- amy ray, 'nuevas senoritas'

See? I told you!

It's nice to see my theory in print! This was spotted in the Boston edition of Metro, the free, global, largely commuter-read newspaper.

The headline: Harvard students evacuated from Beirut
Written by one Laura Dannen of Metro Boston

It begins, "Six Harvard undergraduates are among the thousands of Americans evacuated from Lebanon as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah enters its second week. As of Monday, the students - who had either been studying or doing research in Beirut - had safely dispersed to other countries, including Turkey, Switzerland and California, with the help of the university."

OK, people, seriously. It's cool, powerful, populous, and significant, but California really still is just a state, not another country. But I swear that's how people in New England think of it! People, I might add, who have NOT been there but feel absolutely well qualified to tell me all their judgments about it nonetheless. I used to joke when I first moved from L.A. to Boston that I was a foreign exchange student. Now look how the Metro supports my theory! I love it when that happens.

Here's to how the wind blows

I have been on a quest for a couple of years to "get rid of all my earthly possessions." Trouble is, as a major packrat I have quite a lot of things, but then again they're not particularly valuable or anything. I'm just attached to them. Far too attached. That said, I purge each time I move, and I did pretty well last year as I was preparing to leave for Korea. The biggest sticking point with me is: MY BOOKS.

CDs and books are the only possessions I really don't want to get rid of. Nothing else seems particularly necessary, justifiable, philosophically worth it, etc. But music and books = lifeblood. As anyone who knows me knows, I have acquired a lot of books over the years.

My roommates were the caretakers of my library while I was in Korea. I left my books here in the upstairs middle room, with the promise to attend to them when I returned. Of course at that time I didn't know I'd be returning to live here for two months, so residing in the house this summer is just an added bonus. Yesterday I spent hours upstairs going through all of my books. And you know what I've decided to do?

Get rid of them.

I know! I know! You don't believe it. It's really me, I promise. I am not an impostor posting to this blog. I just think about dragging boxes and boxes of books with me - again - when I leave for Hofstra and as I travel the globe and you know what? No.

Yes, it still feels strange to type these words, to truly be thinking about and ready to get rid of my books. But it's really true. I am such a new person these days, I swear.

So I went through and organized them and I touched every book I own! Every book. That in itself was a fascinating experience. It was such a trip down memory lane, and furthermore I found the most interesting things IN the books, like bookmarks, old pieces of paper, cards, phone messages taken by former roommates I'd at some point used to keep my place...

(side note: there's a used bookstore here, in Cambridge, called Lorem Ipsum Books that decorates the bathroom walls with bits of paper like bookmarks and notes and such from the books it sells. how awesome is that?)

Anyway, I do believe I am going to sell my books. And you know what? After years of accumulation, I have a number of really interesting books!

Now, I have sold books to used bookstores before, actually. Several times over the years I have traded in a dozen or so at a time...but this time I am having a major sell-off. The ones I am keeping? At this point, I am only allowing myself to cling to 1)the gifts from friends and exes and such (surprisingly few) 2)the signed-personalized 3) a few in foreign languages, for practice 4)the cool special editions of Candide (my favorite book - I have six different editions of it) 5) and my Pulitzer novels library. But I might try to purge still further from those lingering groups as well. Like, do I really need to keep the books people gave me just because people gave them to me? I bet other people don't feel nearly as guilty about getting rid of a book I've given them!

It occurs to me I have other books floating around my parents' houses -- forever on my Things to Do list is the task of getting all my earthly belongings from their places -- but the tally, as of today, here in this house: I have 615 books. I have read 247 of them. (That's 40%.)

Hey, that's not so many, really!

"The key to traveling light is to not need very much..." Mary-Chapin Carpenter, 'One Small Heart'