Miscellany: Simplify, Simplify (sorta)

The Internet outage gave me a chance to clean my room, once and for all. I took a deep breath, trawled through my desk drawers, and rummaged through my closet. This would be the definitive cleaning, the one to prepare my belongings for when I move later this summer. During the process, I was surprised by how much stuff I could donate, recycle, or throw away comfortably.

When you realize that you are probably never going to reread a particular book or rewatch a particular DVD (and that, if indeed you ever did want to revisit them, you could use the library or Netflix), it becomes easy to part with it. Instead of valuing the possession, you value the ability to relocate easily, and that generates boxes and boxes of stuff destined for donation to the local library.

Still, you don't want to get rid of everything. I kept my complete "Calvin and Hobbes" collection, for instance, because you never know when you might want to follow the adventures of Spaceman Spiff: