Purge

Since I'm leaving Portland for good in three days to head to Hawaii for a month, and then from there, moving straight to New York in the new year, I not only had to strategize wardrobes, but I had to scrutinize how much of my crap I really needed.

At first I planned to get everything I owned into 6 boxes, plus suitcases. I ended up with 15 boxes. Still, I didn't do too badly in the purging department.

Final count dumped:

- 12 large garbage bags shoved in my apartment's trash bins

- 5 bags of clothes, shoes and bags sold to Buffalo Exchange

- 3 boxes of books sold to Powell's

- 2 chairs, 1 sofa, 1 coffee table, 1 end table and 1 TV stand sold off of Craigslist

- Every pot, pan and appliance owned (except espresso machine and blender - Americanos and smoothies are necessities; baking, frying and boiling are not) donated to thrift store

- 1 Jeep Cherokee sold to a man who figured out within 48 hours that it was a piece of shit. (Too late sucka!)

One last view of my studio. Emptied and clean.

Of all purged items, these were the most internal dialogue-provoking:

1. Shot glasses. When it came time to individually wrap these suckers, I realized that I should be past the age where people (as in 20 people) come over and we all do shots together--no matter the circumstance, whether it's before heading out the door to go to a bar or after four beers. At least, I want to be this person, so I threw them away.

2. This brings me to the 9 wine openers I found. If I was to be judged here, let me say that I had only 4 shot glasses and 9 wine openers, therefore my mature drinking habits beat my immature ones. But honestly, these only served as reminders of how many waitressing jobs I've had. Most of them had a winery's name etched in them, a gift to restaurants from wine reps that are usually passed on to servers. I kept 4 of them. They didn't need to be individually wrapped.

3. Discman. I was about to throw this into a box with all the other junk stuffed in my desk drawer when the thought occurred to me, "Under what circumstance will I ever need to use this?" Even if my iPod died tomorrow, I would not find a way to strap this to my body and start running. I would not pack this my carry-on, mostly because then I'd have to carry around a bunch of CDs. Even if I did have a bunch of CDs I'd want to listen to, I'd have to go through them all and plan accordingly what I think I'd want to listen to several hours and days from now. And I'd have to buy some back up AA batteries. If I can get rid of an old cell phone, I can most definitely get rid of skipping, portable CD player with a "fuct" sticker on it.

4. Fondue set. In theory, melted cheese or chocolate would make the ideal dipping sauce for just about anything I like, such as bacon, pears and more cheese. But I never opened it. Sure, using it would take work, like buying the right chocolate and plugging it in, but I think my aversion to the contraption had more to do with the name: Nesting Fondue. I cannot stand the word "nesting"; it's almost as vomit-inducing as "settling," like "settling down." When I think of chocolate and cheese, and pouring such decadence over salty goods, while drinking a glass of a wine, toddlers, mortgages and 401Ks don't come to mind. Maybe "Fornicating Fondue" would've been more enticing.