Spring Cleaning

The weather has finally broken in Tennessee (for the time being). Snow has left us, the biting cold wind has gone, and finally the sun shines on our heads and warmth touches our skin. Spring. And with this warm weather, only one thing can follow in the south.

It's yard sale season, folks.

I just moved, yet again. Probably the sixth or seventh time in the past three years. I know, ridiculous. Well, this time, I went through most everything I owned, cleaning out, paring down, yada yada yada. Now I have an abundance of things in my garage that I am waiting impatiently to sell and donate once Friday comes. So, if you'll be in the Nashville area on Friday or Saturday this week, give me a holler, I'll hook you up with my address and some deals.

It amazes me how much crap (and yes it is all most certainly CRAP) that we accumulate from year to year. Small things, clothes, books, movies, furniture, trinkets, kitchen items, pictures, decorations, everything. It keeps piling up. Because we are a nation that believes in the value and prestige of owning STUFF. You are nothing without your stuff. We let what we own, what we buy, own us and control us. Ala "Fight Club."

I hate that concept. I hate that my amount of stuff had overwhelmed me, if only momentarily. You, as a single unit, should within in twenty minutes be completely packed and ready for adventure. If you find it too hard to leave your convection oven, whirlpool tub, or 500 count silk sheets... well, you are a sad excuse of an adventurer. There is nothing in my home that I would not leave behind.

Except:

• A buckeye
• My grandfather's pocket knife
• A journal and pen
• A towel

The first two things are sentimental, make me remember my family and the fact that I need to eventually come home (yes, I may or may not have taken off before). The third, a journal and pen, is to keep a record of things that I see and how they affect me. The fourth, a towel, well that's purely a call back to my dear friend, Douglas Adams. Read the Hitchhiker Trilogy, my friends.

So the stuff. Perhaps it is unfair of me to unburden my abundance of stuff on to others, just for them to fall under the weight and be tied down, unable to escape. But really, they should know their own limits of what they desperately need, and what is merely a want that will trap them in their homes.

I know the difference. You gotta learn it for yourself.

So come buy my crap, people.