Tag: home

The story of my stuff

You’ve seen The Story of Stuff, yes? The fairly enlightening, partly animated video about how we North Americans all have too much stuff, and why that’s a problem? It has made me think. (99% of what I acquire is discarded within 6 months? Really?) But so far, I don’t think it’s really made me change my behavior.

It’s just so ingrained. Just watch this beautiful justification for why two people having three television sets just isn’t enough….

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Many television series ran their course for the season back in May or so, but we’ve been getting by with season 1 of True Blood (never did develop the love, though), season 1 of Californication (whereas I really did get caught up with all these flawed people), and even finally finishing all my PVR’ed episodes of Flashforward. (And the TV critic who claimed the last episode was confusing and open-ended was an idiot. The last episode wasn’t in the least hard to follow, and the series tied itself up very nicely, leaving some areas open for the future, yes, but hardly to a frustrating extent. The whole thing is recommended for all who like sci-fi, physics, and philosophical questions of will vs. fate, as presented by pretty people.)

But now all those are done, too, so Jean and I have near run out of shows we both like to watch. This is a problem, because we both tend to like to settle down around 9:00 for a bit of TV. What to watch, what to watch, when all I want to do is catch up with So You Think You Can Dance (nestled there on the PVR) but he’s already engrossed in an action thriller on AMC?

What, you only have TV, you ask? Well, no. But the thing, we only have one TV in a location where it’s actually comfortable to sit down and watch it. The second one is in the kitchen, where your only seating option are the high stools at the breakfast bar. Fine for catching the news while preparing and eating dinner, but not so great for settling in for a long watch. (Plus, being that close to the food also leads to way too much snacking.)

And the third? If you can even call that a TV, given that it’s–and I’m serious–a Commodore 64 monitor. So it’s very old and therefore prone to some flickering, and also very small. And, it’s in the exercise room. Being an exercise room, there are no seats in there, unless you count the big weight machine chair. So it’s a great place to play exercise or other videos while exercising. But if you just want to watch TV, you’re kind of stuck with a yoga mat on the floor as “seating”.

This, combined with the grumpiness that comes with the heat and humidity of late, that has led to us arguing over our respective television preferences, and who is to be banished to the uncomfortable upstairs. Adding insult to injury, upstairs person also loses PVR access. Stuck with live TV, with its many, many long commercial breaks (all telling you that you suck and need to buy more stuff)…

So, clearly, we need to put a TV in the living room.

Much like TV in the bedroom, this is something I’ve always resisted, with some idea that the living room should be about “higher” culture like books and music and paintings and conversation.

But one has to be practical. Fact is, it is the only other room in the house with couches and chairs.

But we ain’t putting a TV cabinet in there. So, the thing will have to wall-mounted. And, it’s the living room; it’s going to have to look good. So there’s no question of moving one of the existing extra TVs into that room (and besides, we need them where they are!). Clearly, we need a new TV.

A lovely, sleek, new flatscreen television.

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See how that works? And the lovely new television will, in turn, lead to justifications for high-definition TV receivers and service and PVRs, not to mention BlueRay DVD players and discs. And won’t that mean some sort of sound system upgrade? …

And hence we demonstrate our value in this culture of consumerism.

Overdosing on self-improvement

For someone who doesn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, I seem to have a lot of self-improvement efforts going on.

I actually did make a New Year’s resolution once, which I did keep that entire year and beyond: To practice the piano at least once a week. The “piano” in question at that time was my Yamaha digital keyboard, a lovely Christmas present, and a very nice-sounding instrument. But as I practiced, and improved (though never to a particularly impressive level), its limitations became clearer: Not being a full keyboard, meaning I couldn’t play all the notes of certain songs. Not having touch sensitivity, meaning that every note of the entire song had to be at the same volume (unless I borrowed one hand to actually turn down the volume button). Not having a sustain pedal, meaning that I could either set to have every note to sustain in equal amounts, or none of them to.

Well, now all of that is solved with my beautiful new Roland digital grand piano.

But with the cost of that thing (though we did get a nice discount on it), I’d darn well better get back to that weekly (minimum) piano playing.

But, I’m going to have to fit that in with my current efforts to try to get my house in better order. What suddenly motivated me to start sorting through the piles of paper, magazines, newspapers, catalogs, etc. in various parts of my house I have no idea, but there it is. Not that you’d notice any major improvement yet. But the pile of reading material beside my bed looks semi-reasonable now, and you can actually see much of the top of the coffee table downstairs. And I seem to feel compelled to keep making the piles smaller, or at least more organized.

That somehow recently extended to the DVDs and CDs scattered across the TV cabinet and computer, now all put away—somewhere. Admittedly some are just in Lee Valley Tool boxes on the floor, but that still looks a little tidier. And it led to a discussion of how I really need more open cabinets, because I need to see my CDs and DVDs. Which gradually extended to a discussion of redoing the entire downstairs, with me actually participating meaningfully in the discussion. This is unusual for me. I don’t generally like thinking about renovating and redecorating. But now, in the interest of eventually having more cabinets, plus a more integrated fitness room, plus a big-ass TV, I’m invested. At least theoretically. We now have a plan for designing the downstairs.

OK, so I’m practicing the piano, cleaning up my piles of paper, and planning renovations.

But that all has to fit in with my new fitness plan. Mind you, I was working out before, but what’s new now is exercising with the hubby. About a month ago I became convinced that hubby really  needed to exercise more frequently. But after attempts to convince him of this with nothing but intense looks and thoughts proved completely ineffective, I tried a radical approach. I used my words.

To my surprise, he actually agreed. Of course, there were some conditions. Activities that he found awkward, like yoga, Pilates, and dance aerobics, were out. Activities he enjoyed more, like weightlifting, boxing, walking, canoeing, and ballroom dancing, were in. Fair enough.

I was expecting this to be a case of me dragging along reluctant hubby, but he’s turned out to be quite the slave driver himself. Let’s walk longer! No, I don’t need a day off! Heavier weights! Jeez.

Plus, the ballroom dance lessons themselves are somewhat self-improvement-y in another way, in relearning all those dance steps we’d forgotten. (At least, I sure hope we’ll relearn them.)

OK, so piano practice, dance practice, daily fitness, cleaning up, planning renovations… Might as well eat better too, right? How else will I keep up with all this? So currently, our fruit basket runneth over. Literally.

The most annoying thing is that all of this is happening in January, which culture tells us is supposed to be the month for self-improvement. Which I just hate buying into, because that would make me just like everybody else.

So, I will just declare that these aren’t new year’s resolutions. That they are just a bunch of projects and activities that happened to all start around January this year. To no particular end goal of self-improvement. Really. It’s all just a big coincidence…