Someday Syndrome

A Well Ordered Ruin

I spent yesterday organizing a ruin. That's what the family calls it: The Ruin. It's the one building in the row that doesn't have windows and still has its original boxwood branch room (now covered with tiles). It's really not a ruin, but a large space for building supplies.

When I started, I thought I was going to throw out most of it. You could barely move around in the space. Plus, the homeowner had admitted that she throws very little out because she is sure she'll need everything someday.

At the end, however, the garbage pile was very small. Once everything had been sorted, most of it proved to be useful. And once I organized it all back into the space, the store room has plenty of room and could take more storage if necessary.

Given how far away from the dump we are and that we would have to transport it ourselves, having little to throw out is a good thing.

Someday Lessons:

• If you have enough space, you can keep things that you might need someday.
• Keep things for future needs sorted or you won't be able to find them when you do want to use them.

Collections of Alex Everywhere

I'm not sure I'll have Internet access while I'm away, so here is the first of five pre-written pieces.

I've decided not to sell everything I own here. The appliances yes – they're just too bulky to store and should be in use – but the rest, I think I'll keep.

There are two reasons for this:

One: I might decide to settle down again somewhere in Europe and there is no sense in having to re-buy stuff. Plus my cousins can use the things or store them while I travel.

Two: I need some sort of security blanket. I have that back in Toronto with a woodshed full of stuff at my parents' place. By storing things in my cousins' attic, I establish roots, somewhere to come back to. I'm not completely adrift.

If I was really going fully nomadic, I'd get rid of anything that won't travel easily. But practicality aside, I just feel safer with a collection of my things waiting for me.

Someday Lessons:

• Emotion trumps logic almost every time. Be aware and sometimes let it win.
• It's not always a bad thing to leave your options open.

Packing Thoughts

If I go commando three times, I'll have enough underwear for the journey.

It's thoughts like these that go through my head as I pack. I'm not the sort to think of mix'n'match outfits. I think in terms of wearable days.

I'm away for almost three weeks, which means:

• 4 pairs of pants - 4 or 5 days each
• 10 t-shirts - 2 days each
• 15 pairs of underwear - 3 (aforementioned) commando days
• 12 pairs of socks - basically 2 days each
• and a mix of sweaters and button-downs for fashion.

I'm good with the commando days, but what about the socks and t-shirt situation? Can I wear the same shirt twice? Will I begin to go stereotypically smelly-French by the end of the second day? And the socks - after two days will they stand on their own?

And don't you dare get me worrying about spilling something on a pair of pants!

It's a heavy suitcase and I could have packed less, but then I'd waste precious tourist time sitting in a laundromat. Who wants to do that?

Someday Lessons:

• Organizing is easier when you know how your mind works.
• Life is often a matter of trade-offs. Time? Or space? Or energy?

Lunch Today:
No lunch lists for the next while as I'll be posting in batches...

IKEA is a Dangerous Place

I went to IKEA while in Bordeaux. It's a good thing I was limited to what I could carry on the bus, or my credit card would have taken a bigger hit.

I went because I could. Bordeaux has an IKEA – how could I not go? I also went to finally fulfill my kitchen-table mission. And I went to get curtains given how not-insulated my apartment is.

I was tempted by but passed up light fixtures. I've lived three months with bare bulbs. I can live longer that way.

I considered a bed frame, but that would have involved delivery. Besides, I have legs for my bed; I just need to drill the holes in the mattress support and I'll have a proper bed. I don't need to spend the money on a new frame.

IKEA is one of the only stores I know of that is busy no matter what day, no matter what time of year. It's a whole experience, like an amusement park without the rides. A trip to IKEA, especially when you don't live near one is an outing in itself. You arrive, head upstairs, mill through the furniture, admiring how they manage to pack so much stuff into the tiny little fake apartments. If the restaurant line is not too long, you go eat your Swedish meatballs (or one-dollar breakfast if you're a morning shopper), then you head downstairs, grab a cart and fill it with stuff you've found in the marketplace.

If you're like me, you then fight the crowds putting back most of the things you've put in the cart. Or you just dump them in a pile on top of a stack of carpets.

I wonder what it is about IKEA that's so appealing. The furniture isn't that great quality and the marketplace stuff can be bought at other places for the same price or cheaper. I think the attraction is the sheer volume of stuff. Plus IKEA knows how to market itself, making even the least practical items seem somehow not just usable, but necessary.

Whenever I go to IKEA, I'm very strict with myself. Maybes and mights aren't allowed. I will pull something off a shelf or out of a bin, feel it, determine exactly how I'd use it and how it'd make my life so much easier, then reluctantly put it back.

If one can love something too much, then for me, the IKEA marketplace is just such a thing. And that's why it's so dangerous.

Someday Lessons:

• Don't give in to marketing – know when you really need something and when you don't.
• It's easy to over-shop at stores you love.

Lunch Today:
Two IKEA hot dogs - so different from Canadian hot dogs, almost breakfast-sausage-like.

Junk Overload

Today my dad took me to the family hardware store in Birr, Ireland: W.K. Fayle & Co. Ltd. The store hasn't been owned by Fayles since the 1920s or 30s but it still has our name attached.

We poked around the store rooms and former apartments above the store. I was horrified! The organizer in me wanted to either run out screaming or gather a crew of twenty people and put the place in order.

You can't move in most rooms, and in each almost everything is junk. In past visits, my parents have gone through the rooms and taken anything Fayle and historically significant. The rest is crap.

My parents and I discussed me returning to Ireland to supervise packing and shipping the contents of the rooms to Canada, but in seeing the space, my dad decided that there were two things he wanted. The rest as I said is crap.

There are many old old books but they're hidden amongst other rotting papers and it's difficult to find any valuable ones in decent shape.

In one way, it's good they've kept everything because we have found treasures over the years, but aie! I don't want to be the one to clear out the junk, which seriously needs to be done. The dry rotted and worm-eaten wood is beginning to me the building unsound - another decade and I'd say the place will be unsafe to enter. Which is a real waste of a beautiful old building.

Someday Lessons:

• If you're going to collect stuff, keep it organized and catalogued or it's just going to become crap.
• Clutter impairs maintenance which creates greater long-term costs - in complete renovation needs.

Thoughts About Money

I had decided that today’s topic should be money given how much of it I’ve spent recently. Money is one of the few things I certainly will need someday (and today and tomorrow). But I’ve tried writing (or composing in my head) several versions of this post and they’ve all said nothing. Actually they were totally incomprehensible.

Two things I know about money:

1. I never have enough of it.
2. When I really need it, I can find it.

A pretty typical middle-class relationship with money, no?

Over the past three years, being self-employed with very little money available taught me not to shop much, but that’s a challenge. Today while exploring the city of Pau (which seems to be all shops) I saw the awesomest white shirt with funky cowboy-esque black printing on it. It’s hard to describe, but I wanted it so badly. If I’d seen it in Toronto, I would have grabbed it in a flash.

But here in Sauveterre I have no need for funky shirts, no matter how awesome they are. I did, however, buy a waterproof trench coat – necessary and fashionable plus it’ll be usable after I leave France.

This post was supposed to be about money and instead I’m talking about clothes. That’s because money is too abstract a concept for me to really understand. Money doesn’t really exist – it’s just a common way of agreeing to a value of goods and services. It’s a communication tool and nothing more.

And now, since I’m not earning money, I feel left out of the conversation. By selling my house and creating an investment draw for a year, it’s like I’ve prerecorded my conversation and I just press play in response to other people’s attempts at financial interaction.

Maybe I’ll get a better handle on my current money situation if I say that instead of being disconnected from the money conversation, I’m free to decide when to engage. That way I can choose when to interact and when to press the play button in response to boring questions that only require standard responses (like monthly bills).

Someday Lessons:

1. Be aware of how you think about money; that attitude affects how you spend it.
2. With negative thoughts, turn them into a story then twist the story to create a happy ending (i.e., turning the exclusion from the conversation into being free to decide when I’ll interact).

Lunch Today:

Bought in Pau: a mini quiche at 11:30, a glass of sangria at 1:00 and a half-baguette sandwich at 3:00.