Rub weasel on your behbeh
Turns out Mustela is a kind of French skin cream for infants. Who knew? They have a whole range of products, but I’m having problems with my Flash plugins so my browsers throw up on the website.
Yep. I got nothing.
Rushed a PowerPoint out the door for somebody today and had a mover’s estimator show up and case the joint. If you’d told me a year ago that all my worldly possessions would fit into a container ten foot by ten foot by seven foot, I’d go, “pff! Yeah! If you leave it on the surface of a really high-gravity planet for like a year until all the atoms smoosh together into some super-dense Weaselium alloy. Yeah. Maybe then.”
But it turns out, 80% of my precious shit was shit. And now it sits on a landfill somewhere, its sightless eyes staring up forever into the wide, empty sky. China, maybe. Or Arizona. Or the Atlantic. Where does our shit go, anyhow?
People keep asking me if it’s a liberating feeling, tossing my shit. It is…but in a horrible, nihilistic way. It’s the liberation of watching your house burn down. It’s the liberation of knowing that everything you have amassed in a lifetime that is worth a damn would fit in a 10x10x7 container. And half of that is probably kind of crap.
But enough poopies! Now that my visa has arrived at the Embassy, I really — finally! — feel quite happy. A little anxious still, but it’s dawned on me…I will wake up to an alarm clock five more times in my life.
Not that I’ve slept until the alarm for years and years, but it’s the idea, man. The idea.
Posted: November 13th, 2008 under blogging, moving, personal.
Comments: 24
Comments
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: November 13, 2008, 6:45 pm
Well, in the final analysis how much of our stuff do we really need? Lives aren’t measured by the accumulation of material things. I think if I really boiled it down all I would really need is just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that’s all I need. And that’s all I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one – I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that’s all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair…
๐
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 13, 2008, 7:22 pm
Ohhhhh…a smohohohoker. I am so ennnnnnnvious. God, I miss it. Seriously. I still sidle up to people and take a toke of the second-hand stuff whenever I can. It smells like heaven.
I never realized how awful the stale stuff smells, though. When I was a smoker, I really believed there was such a thing as sneaking off for a smoke. Ha! For half an hour, everybody in a twenty foot radius knows you snuck off for a butt.
Comment from wendyworn
Time: November 13, 2008, 8:00 pm
I’m so glad you have a little rest from the worry about your paperwork. It will be nice for you to have a extended vacation in England.
weird, I’ve been getting rid of bunch of shit lately too. I’ve taken several loads down to the thrift store and have put some ad’s on craiglists to sell my stuff cheap. (It wasnt really about the money – more about getting them to come and take it away)
Of course, having newly donned the tin foil hat, I was worried about what would I do with all this crap if the economy comes to a grinding halt, we go into martial law, and I have to go all survivalist ala Man vs. Wild. (realistically I was thinking of what would I do with all this shit if I have to move back in with the parents if I lose my job and/or apt.) So I’ve been trying to get rid of as much of my stuff as I can. When I last moved into this apartment it took a 14′ U-haul. That’s a lot o crap. I did have a fantasy scenario that when I move out I will have sold it all on craigslist and can just walk out with a backpack and a box of cleaning supplies. who knows.
Comment from iamfelix
Time: November 13, 2008, 8:17 pm
ha ha, Enas … on of my favorite movie quotes. Once I was complaining at work that nobody “got” it when I recited it; my best pal said, “Perhaps if you had your pants around your ankles ….” ๐
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: November 13, 2008, 8:30 pm
Actually Weasel I gave up the cigarettes some years ago now. I don’t really miss it personally. I sure as hell don’t miss being a slave to the little suckers.
iamfelix, I just couldn’t let chance to use that bit go by ๐
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: November 13, 2008, 8:49 pm
Weas, as long as you didn’t cover it up with nasty perfume. That just makes it worse.
(I have a sensitive sense of smell…it’s more of a curse than a gift.)
Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 13, 2008, 9:07 pm
You too, Mrs. Peel? Even when I smoked my sense of smell was acute. I always hated it when somebody kissed me on the nose (rarely, Praise Obama!), since I got to smell their spit for w-a-y too long.
Comment from harbqll
Time: November 13, 2008, 9:33 pm
Weas, after I quit smoking, I missed it too. So very, very much. I would hover near my co-workers after they returned from the smoking area, stared longlingly at people smoking, the whole nine yards.
After about a year, I was handed a celebratory cigar. Holy Drunken Ninja Jesus, it was like coming home. So now, I have a couple of cigars a week; friday night with the fellas, after a big exam, that sort of thing. I no longer feel like I’m walking around missing an arm.
Don’t know if that’s what you need, but hey, it keeps *me* sane.
Comment from Jill
Time: November 13, 2008, 10:13 pm
I quit smoking 8 months ago. My sense of taste didn’t improve, but my sense of smell went through the roof. That’s not always a good thing. About 2 months into quitting, I entered the elevator after a co-worker had just exited. He and his wife had a new baby at their house. The elevator smelled like used baby diapers. I just about died.
Comment from Jill
Time: November 13, 2008, 10:30 pm
Dude. I went to the Mustela website. Y’ain’t missin’ much.
Comment from MCPO Airdale
Time: November 13, 2008, 10:43 pm
Retirement is the shizzle. My clock gives me the day of the week, not the time. It’s either daytime or night time.
Comment from scubafreak
Time: November 13, 2008, 11:03 pm
Frankely, I never could stand cigarettes. I tried smoking one time, and got sick as a dog. Never tried one again.
I’ve sometimes been curious about pipes and cigars, but never really tried them.
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: November 14, 2008, 12:31 am
I have an addictive personality (you should have seen me with my precious, precious Dr. Pepper before I gave it up forever in June ’06), so I just stay the hell away from anything that actually is chemically addictive. With the obvious exception of refined sugar. YOU’LL GET MY SUGAR WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD CAVITIES!
Anyway, Weas? Only five more days with the alarm? That’s huge. Wow.
Comment from porknbean
Time: November 14, 2008, 12:40 am
I inhaled once in the sixth grade. My lungs screamed. That was it.
Comment from Princess Bernie
Time: November 14, 2008, 9:49 am
Badger products are cool. The labels are especially neat.
Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: November 14, 2008, 10:57 am
As a teenager I used to douse myself with about half a can deodorant after I’d been smoking in order to mask the smell from my parents. I’m pretty sure they never suspected a thing (apart from maybe thinking I had an acute body odour problem or something), well, at least not until my Mum found about 30 empty fag packets stashed in my room. Not really sure why I kept the packets. In hind sight, it was pretty stupid.
Comment from Discoverer
Time: November 14, 2008, 12:33 pm
I smoked for 10 glorious years – from 17 to 27. I started in order to learn to blow smoke rings. I finally mastered the triple. The double, she is not so hard, but the Triple – she is a demanding mistress! I started with Old Golds- made from the finest tobacco barn sweepings in North Carolina. Once, I got one with a filter at each end. Drunk at the time, I didn’t notice and lighted the filter, flipped the cigarette and then did it again. Later, as my tastes grew more refined and I actually had a steady income, I switched to British Benson & Hedges… Why do the Brit’s get the (truly) finest Virginia Tobaccos? Delicious. I still miss those.
I quit for a a simple reason –
I grew tired of dirty ashtrays. They were everywhere! And dirty ashtrays stink. Ms. Lokki wouldn’t try to stop me from smoking, but she simply wouldn’t do ashtrays. Reasonable approach, I thought.
My worst post-quitting temptational moment came about 2 weeks after Stop-day. I was teaching a class to a group of Japanese businessmen and called a break. Suddenly, like a synchonized swimming team, everyone in the class tapped out a cig from the pack, lit it in unison, and blew the smoke towards me at at front of the room. I could see that blue wave rolling towards me, and my tongue hung out….. It was a hard, hard moment. It may have been a hallucination, but it was very, very real to me.
The only cigarette I’ve had since I quit was on the day I tumbled the bike on a mountain curve. I was passing another motorcycle and called for a little more lean than the bike possessed. Right boot toe-tip(ahead of the footpeg), then knee, then shoulder were sucked into the pavement. The bike summersaulted, and kept flipping end-over-end for 3 or 4 flips, while I said prayers to the deer that donated his hide to back of my riding jacket. I lived. The bike didn’t.
That moment, boys and girls called for a cigarette.
And there is more than you ever wanted to know about Lokki and cigarettes.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 14, 2008, 12:49 pm
I’m just pleased to learn who Discoverer is.
My nurse friend thinks I was using nicotine to self-medicate my ADD. Heh heh. It is true that I’ve gone totally flighty and stupid since I quit. Can’t sit still and read or program for long.
Comment from Lokki
Time: November 14, 2008, 2:18 pm
Thanks for the welcome back, … it’s been a long, strange, trip, but I’m back for the Bon Voyage.
Nicotine really is wonderful stuff, you know.
“Improvement in attention, learning, reaction time, and problem solving have been reported…. Different processes, including attention, stimulus evaluation, and response selection, appear to be involved in the effect of nicotine on human information processing” and, of couse, we all know about the stop-smoking and weight-weight gain relationship.
http://www.forces.org/evidence/hamilton/other/nicotine.htm
I’ve long said that tobacco is very, very good for you, right up to the point where it kills you.
Sort of like arsenic for horses. I’d expand on that subject, but I suspect that a few others here probably know far more that I do on that subject…
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: November 14, 2008, 2:33 pm
Yo, Lokki!
Thought you’d been lost at sea or sumpin.
Weaz has gone all short-timer now! It’s fun to watch.
Comment from Scancehibia
Time: November 26, 2008, 1:16 pm
hey!
I made on photoshop glitter myspace pictures.
have a look at them:
http://tinyurl.com/5pq6aj
Thank you for your site ๐ xoxoxo
Comment from porknbean
Time: November 26, 2008, 3:29 pm
Huh oh, looks like something from the spam bucket mighta escaped. Who left the trap door open…….? Maybe wease did it looking for the skeered puddy.
Avert your eyes before you are turned to stone. Shunnnn..n.nn
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