July 23, 2002

Last weekend may well have been my most fruitful shopping spree EVER. The only close runners-up I can remember are my first trip to Laredo and a tour of a half-dozen Fort Worth DAVs (both about a decade ago).

My 3-day binge included 9 thrift stores, an estimated 3 dozen garage sales, and a trip to Ross, ostensibly to return an overly-mommy purse I bought with reservations then I snubbed when I found the equally-practical-but-less-dumpy handbag I'm currently using (both purchases were before my new handbag kick).

As a result, my house is particularly chaotic: hills of vintage clothes and textiles (I'm on a handbag-making bender--we'll see how that plays out), mounds of more practical adult-type clothes, teetering towers of Tupperware, little patches of housewares and appliances and glass, bags of crafty odds and ends, vintage camping and picnic gear. And absolutely no buyer's remorse. In fact, several dubious items of clothing turned out to be surprise perfect fits--and far more lovely in real life than on the hanger.

I am up in the air about the 2 skirts from Savers (they're winter skirts; I need to try them on with tights) and I'm returning one of the Ross dresses. But otherwise, I'm still giddy with accomplishment.

All my newfound loot materialized during an era of singular creative energy coupled with a dizzying lack of focus. Which means my house is a sight. It's like the old days in here, nearly impossible to navigate. Luckily, we all have a sort of clutter-tuned sonar. The dogs can snake through the unsteady piles with nary a crash. I can navigate my way to the bathroom in the dark through the treacherous, winding, foot-wide path between my bed and the door. It's like living inside a giant Jenga game. I know it's supposed to be murder on the feng shui of the place--and it definitely doesn't inspire inner peace--but I love it like this. I'd forgotten how living in one of those cluttery old lady houses you read about in the newspaper energizes me.

Part of my joy is in the casting-off and compacting phase that comes with a shiny new batch of garbage. I get to reevaluate all of my current junk, fill and stack boxes and boxes for the next garage sale, pimp the more desirable items on ebay, and reshift, resort, compact and relabel everything else in to a diabolical Tetris-y system of delicately balanced visible and unseen clutter.

While emptying and more efficiently refilling one of my tiny closets, I had an epiphany about next year's To Do list. Instead of my usual hundred-plus list, just one single item: quit hoarding.

Before you snort, I need to point out that there's a difference between packratting and hoarding. Packrats delight in the countless trinkets and broken-down scrap piles they erect around themselves. Each useless object, displayed or packed away and occasionally stumbled upon, charms or amuses them.

Hoarders get no joy from their garbage. They just hang on to it out of a vague fear that it is or will one day be valuable. Hoarders are enslaved by and entombed in their crap; packrats are uplifted by theirs. I am both a hoarder and a packrat, but I aspire to pure packratdom. We'll see if I make it.

Normally, I would spend this week cleaning, admiring and positioning my new treasures. Unfortunately, this windfall came right before my vacation. But I'm so looking forward to the vacation itself that I'm not even suffering from my typical pre-vacation loose-ends anxiety. (I will, however, have to box it all up neatly so that I can construct a minefield of rat traps to work while I'm away.)

I'm going camping with my fabulous mother, Kristi, and our dogs.

My mom hasn't been camping since she was a girl & she's all psyched about the cheap getaway and bringing her dog on vacation. My dad (who is staying home) is skeptical. Mom's what you might call high-maintenance, and my dad isn't convinced she'll survive without a hotel gym and air conditioning.

While Huntsville State Park isn't the Plaza, we certainly won't be roughing it. She drives an Explorer, so there's ample room for both dogs and artless packing. We have a H-U-G-E tent ($119 on sale). I had no idea how fucking enormous it was until I tried to set it up for practice (using a stopwatch) in my living room. It wouldn't fit, not even after I moved a bunch of furniture. I could only set up the main room & kind of flop over the side rooms. It's so big that I talked Kristi into getting a little folding picnic table for the main room ($28 on sale, also Target) so we can play cards and do makeovers mosquito-free. It has an enormous main room, plus 3 separate side rooms--but one divider is removable, so you can instead make the main room even bigger. Each of the side rooms is tall enough to stand in and about 50% larger than my entire (alleged) 2-man tent. So we each get our own room! It's a friggin Presidential Suite.

AND! Get this! Our campsite has an electric hookup, which I assume is normally for RVs. But my mom's friends who tent camp all the time told her to get electric if she could, because then you can set up fans. FANS! I'm beside myself. Everyone I tell about the electricity laughs at me and shakes their heads, as if they're rugged mountaineers instead of whimpering titty babies who can't drive to the HEB without AC. But I don't give a fig. This is going to be the best camping trip ever! Four days of lazing, grilling, hiking, drinking & gambling--and maybe even a little water fun, if we can persuade the dogs to behave.

Pinch me!

06.15.02