INTERESTING TIMES

Another person discovers that having too much stuff is a burden on one's life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

In a recent study, the Northwestern University psychologist Galen V. Bodenhausen linked consumption with aberrant, antisocial behavior. Professor Bodenhausen found that “Irrespective of personality, in situations that activate a consumer mind-set, people show the same sorts of problematic patterns in well-being, including negative affect and social disengagement.” Though American consumer activity has increased substantially since the 1950s, happiness levels have flat-lined.

I have this strange chair that is the corner out of a segmented sofa. It is supposed to be off white, but it is so old and dirty that it is more like gray mottled with brown. Last winter the roof leaked on it and the stains were the worst yet. I generally keep it covered with a blanket. Today I propped it up on the bannister of our tiny 2nd floor porch. I sprayed it with dilute dish soap, scrubbed the spots a little and hosed it off repeatedly. Then it started to rain. I thought "great, it will get rinsed off well". But then the rain set in as if it would never end. The chair might never dry left out on the porch. So I just wrangled the oversized ugly thing back into the foyer and set a fan on it. This chair only came with me to Oregon because my cat loved it. It is the thing that has told her we are "home" in the several moves we have made so far. I think this may be the end of the chair. It is a piece of garbage that I carted here with me from Arizona. I often think back on the stuff I loaded in a truck to bring here. Junk. But this chair has had its moments. It has been a good meditation chair. And it fits well in small nooks beside windows. I think I paid Suzanne (not this Suzanne but the prior one in my life) $10 for it. I can barely believe I paid ten bucks for this. But here it is. Funny how possessions can complicate our lives. I would have done well to get rid of it a long time ago, and the cat would have known some other way that we were home.

I keep thinking I should get rid of 90% of everything that I have.
Then I cram more stuff into the closet that I might use someday.

The kitten just brought me a gift. It was the front half of a frog, with entrails hanging and only one leg left. I was in the middle of about a dozen tasks at the moment that I saw the frog. The task most immediately at hand was making the bed. The kitten was very excited, clawing and scrambling under the bed as she likes to do when it is being made. But then she scrambled her frog half into my vision.
( more )

My computer died on Thursday. Or maybe Wednesday, but I didn't discover it for a while. Today I took it to the "Genius Bar" at the Apple store in downtown Portland and they fixed it -- for free! The power control unit on the mother board needed to be reset. That's it. Phew! When my machine chimed I told the guy "You ARE a genius!"

I had a lovely bike ride back up to NCNM from downtown Portland. The school is very close to town. I am going to start going to town one day a week after school, just because I enjoy the city so much. It hums, and I hum right along with it. I love to see all the crazy wild people on the sidewalks. There was a lady sitting on her jacket on the sidewalk, playing violin---wow she was incredibly good! Music makes me happy.
( What Else Has Been Going On )

Yesterday I did a few more home-making errands, such as buying a kettle that whistles so I won't burn any more pots on the stove. I bought a gallon each of vinegar and bleach, and cleaned my bathroom for the 3rd time. I washed the walls first with vinegar, then with bleach, and the green colored water revealed that I was actually removing the paint from the walls. I left a fan blowing out the window to remove the fumes. I cleaned under and behind everything, scrubbed the trim, pulled all the hair and bandaids out of the heating vents, washed all the towels and rugs, cleaned the litter box and took out the trash. After it was all done I had a hopeful moment that the smell would be gone, but it's still there. I can burn incense in there every day until I die and that smell will still be in there. I may try some commercial products that cover or "eat" odors.

So I remain open to other living arrangements.
( West Linn Days )

Probably the biggest holdup on my decision to go to graduate school has been the uncertainty of how I would pay for it. I have lived in fear of the debt, and in the knowledge that our economy is going to continue in a generally downward trend for the rest of my days and beyond. But this experience of moving has been....moving. I am surprised and grateful at all the contributions I have received toward my moving a school expenses. THANK YOU to everyone who contributed in their own small way to help me make this move. It was time.

If you take the feng shui perspective on my relocation from Flagstaff to Portland, I just broke loose a whole lot of "stuck" energy and released it into the universe. The Universe responded by sending lots of energy my way--in precisely the form that I needed it, and that is, money.

So now that I have landed in Portland I find that I have landed in a dump of nasty unconscious bachelor energy. It will take some work, but I will carve my niche of beauty and consciousness out in these surroundings. The raw materials are here. Men more often fail at the most basic level of feng shui, and that is fundamental cleanliness. This room, and especially my tiny little bathroom, were nasty. The bachelor looks at it and says it is clean. So this morning I am cleaning, because no amount of prayer and incense will clean the atmosphere of a place if it is covered in piss and spiderwebs.

There is a beautiful back yard here, but it has become a dumping ground. It will become my yoga space, in time. He put his grill out there and thrown wrappers from meat in a plastic planter, and tarped over unwanted rusting furniture under the porch. There is a yard sale here this coming weekend, and WE are going to participate in it!

There is an upside to this bachelor's lack of care for his homespace. It means that there is little competition for the space. Lisa is the other female housemate, and Brian brags that "her hobby is cleaning". I see why. There has been no conscious woman's touch here in a long time. Once I get my room cleaned and set up, I'll branch out into other parts of the home, brightening it without the resistance that I got from my territorial neighbor in the Barn.