Weekly Report #2

by | Mar 10, 2013

107 days remain til June 25. Not that I’m counting. But that’s the day I’m leaving for Australia, and anything that doesn’t fit in my carry on luggage ain’t coming.

Today’s a day of purging. I just went through my clothes and found 35 lbs of stuff I don’t care enough to keep.

That’s a lie.

Some of that stuff hurts to get rid of. Purging is a time of introspection – you think about how you spend your time, and you have to justify your choices based on that.

How much time do you spend in nightclubs, nice restaurants, places with dim lighting and dress codes? For me,  not much. That gets rid of about 15 lbs on its own – and it’s not like I had anything really fancy for those occasions anyway. How much time do you spend on your back in the mud, at the racetrack, or in the garage? Quite a bit more. But how many crappy pairs of jeans do you really need? Just one should do it, I think. There goes another 15 lbs. How much time do you spend at the river, the beach, riding my bike, tramping in the woods? Probably not enough. I kept a lot of that stuff, ambitiously. Dress for the life you want, right?

I ended up with a lot of jeans, short pants, purple, green and black T-shirts  and soft materials. Hopefully this’ll help me shop properly in the future.

Clearly, I know what I like.

Clearly, I know what I like.

This is hard. It really underscores the fact that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with my life. If I was living the life I wanted, I’d have a lot of cycling jerseys, shorts and really hip jeans, for alleycat races and road rides.

I’d have tactical clothing full of pockets for helicoptering into the forest and getting really up close and personal about environmental data collection. I’d have a T-shirt with my own company’s logo on it, one of dozens that are tossed around at tech conferences. What I’ve got instead is a lot of black T-shirts and cheap jeans, for looking presentable and unremarkable in generic company. It’s like a blank slate that just keeps on being blank.

That’s what I have left after I get rid of all the stuff that isn’t me.