Chapter 84.3: Junk Day

Just laid several old items at the curbside to be picked up for junk day. Already, a couple cars have slowed — one even stopped — to check whether my junk was their treasure. It seems, however, that there's not much of a market for ten-year-old Macs, fifteen-year-old televisions, or a ceiling lamp that looks like it belongs in a Korean deli.

I expect 2010 to be a year of garage sales. I hope we have one (I've been saying this for at least four years), but I'm sure there'll be lots more around the neighborhood. Sure, there's the economic reasons. I know I can always use a spare twenty or two to scare away the moths, especially these days when we count ourselves lucky to not spend $30 to fill a tank with gas.

But junk is a relative thing. I had gone into my basement intending to toss more stuff. But the CD player still works (I have a five-CD player these days), and there's a mixer that might still be useful for when I start playing the guitar and recording songs again. So they're still downstairs, and now that the other stuff is gone, these old items seem to have gained a little luster. They're less "old crap" and more "stuff from my past." There's a tinge of nostalgia to them rather than a layer of dust — well, there's that too, actually.

But I think more positively about the future now, if for no other reason than I'd love for 2009 to be over. It's been an exhausting year — even moreso for my wife.

So as another car moseys by the curbside, I wish you all good luck cleaning out your 2009 mind of the stuff that's accumulated, and preparing to start 2010 with a clean slate.