2) In the event that I haven’t told you yet, if you rside in any of the following places: Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Ithaca, Philadelphia, Toronto, Tennessee, Chicago, Maryland, Delaware, or will be there in May/June/July, keep your eyes peeled. Because I will be too. More on that coming soon.
3) In the event that you read my post about Christmas in March, and you have yet to receive anything from me in the mail, don’t be dissapointed (or if you were me, feel like you’re off the hook), I just sent out some packages, and have a bundle of a few more to send out early next week.
Above is a prioritized list of where I spend my time. Most of my time is spent in the hut. If not at the hut, I can often be found at the beach. The third most frequented place I am found is the post office. What is wrong with me? So much, but not because I love the post office.
Coming from Manhattan, where I used to spend considerable amounts of time at the post office as well, you’d think I’d share the disdain that my fellow New Yorkers do for the post office. Most of you are familiar with the out-the-door lines, severely underpaid/under-motivated/under-basic-intelligence men and women behind the counter, the bulletproof shutters that lock from both sides that you have to slide your package through (but only once they have released the lock on the inside), the Spanish you have to speak to be able to understand what delivery confirmation/signature receipt you are being offered, and the fact that you can’t possibly fit anything “fragile, liquid, powder or potentially hazardous” inside your post card but are asked anyways. “Oh actually yes, I am trying to mail a bomb in this shoddily marked box of mine, a fragile bomb in fact, that when kicked around like a football by your co-workers will combine both powder AND liquid to decimate a city block.”
Alas, I don’t. I find every and any excuse I can to go to the post office. I mail things to people that they aren’t expecting, things that they probably don’t even want, but I just want an excuse to get rid of them AND to go to the post office. Something about the post office in Hawaii specifically, is so therapeutic. I know there is going to be a line (it’s Waikiki after all, and I can’t tell you how many times some European person has tried to ship a run-of-the-mill pineapple in a box they bought which has to be turned down because it hasn’t been checked by the agriculture department). I know the service is going to be slow (it’s Hawaii, no one is in a rush, nor should they be). I know just when I’m the next customer in line to be serviced, half of the staff will take their lunch break. But I don’t mind.
It’s kind of like walking into the shit-storm, but being covered in toilet paper. I’m the only one (especially in Waikiki, where everyone is a tourist) that doesn’t mind all of those things. Everyone else hates the post office before they even get inside, and so when the post office in Hawaii is even slower then their post office at home, has more regulations about what can be sent in/out of the state, has higher rates and slower delivery times because things have to go by boat, they really lose it. I really love it.
My love for the post office is two-fold. The entertainment factor is a big part, but what provides me with even greater satisfaction is that if I’m there, it means I’m getting rid of something. Something that doesn’t fit in an envelope (usually) is leaving my possession to be sent somewhere else. And in my never-ending quest to get rid of everything but the essentials in my life (that includes you), shipping something off can only be good news. It’s not an event, or a project, or an art installation, or like that guy who wrote All My Life For Sale (he sold everything he owned on eBay, and then spent the money traveling around to see/photograph his possessions in their new homes, and ended up falling in love with the woman who bought his kitchen table and her three daughters, and then he married her). It’s just a conscious decision to reduce the clutter.
The more stuff you have, the more stuff you can do things with. This is great if those things are what you want to be doing, if they are not, then these things (which seem great) are obstacles. So I get rid of the obstacles. Here’s where you say “well what if you need/want one or some of things one day?” Go buy it. I’ve gotten rid of hundreds of things, and haven’t bought any of them back yet. The money/time/energy you save from selling your obstacles and as a result not spending money/time/energy on those obstacles will more then cover the costs of buying any of those items back if ever the time comes when you decide they weren’t obstacles but things you actually wanted (you just didn’t think so at the time).
“Yes but what about those things that can’t be bought back or replaced.” Oh touche smart reader, but I challenge your belief whether they can’t be bought back or replaced, and whether or not you need them in the first place. Are you assigning too much value to a thing? Does that note from your high school crush that you saved really serve as a reminder of your love/pain/childhood. If you lose/burn/auction off that note, will you really forget what it felt like to receive/read/write/feel it? Would a scanned copy suffice to remind you of the feelings/memories? Would one instead of the hundred you kept adequately serve the same purpose? Must you insist on dwelling on the past so much? Don’t get me wrong, a handful of items that are kept for sentiment can be great, I just don’t want to have so much that the items that evoke the most nostalgia are lost in a sea of items that evoke little to none.
I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be a good designer, but in that defeat I have decided to set my bar a little higher and aim to be a good liver. A good designer knows that you need space in order to give context, meaning, and value to what it is you are trying to display or the message you are trying to convey. Just because you have room, doesn’t mean you should fill it. In an ever-crowded, cluttered, and over saturated world, a good liver knows that the less stuff you have to occupy your space, the more space you have to breath.
For some unthinkable reason, I get Woman’s Day magazine in my mailbox. It’s addressed to me, my name, my address (no typos) and I have received three of them in the last month. I don’t know how often this celebration of all things kitchen and residential is printed, but I know that I didn’t order that shit. I love getting mail, but not this. If you have a need for Woman’s Day magazine, let me know and I’ll change the name/address of the current subscription to your place. If you cursed my soul by subscribing me to this scourge, may you rot.
