I did it ebay! Part 2
It's time for another exciting edition of...This Isn't Your Life!
Busy, busy busy. English really needs to come up with another word to describe this. I'm tired of using the same one over and over again.
As you may have deduced from the post title, I did in fact do it eBay, and I must say it was a raging success. I have made a whopping $163.80 to date, with one auction still running. Considering that all I did to earn this money was rid myself of some of the ever-accumulating mass of stuff in my life, it is by far the easiest $160 I've ever made. (But that last $3.80 was pure work!)
The semester has started, the cycle begins again, and I am throwing myself into it with my usual vigor. Even though every semester is different, and as I advance through graduate school I venture ever further into completely uncharted territory, there is a pattern and a sameness to it that I find comforting. Not to wax poetic here, but it is a cycle, and while I may not know exactly what I'm doing, I do know the general form of the beast. It is finite. I have seen it before.
I feel that as I move through life, I earn the ability to "zoom out" further and further. It's like, at first, I am standing in front of something that is huge and looming - it's so tall and massive that I can't see the top of it, or even the sides. Then, as I grow a little and "zoom out", I recognize the thing as a tree. I zoom out a bit more and see that the tree is in a forest. Further still, I see that the forest is on an island, and the island is on an ocean, the ocean is on a planet, and so forth. Then, I can go back to standing in front of the huge tree with knowlege of it in context. I think this is called wisdom.
Swimming back from the deep end, I'm moving this weekend. Technically, I'm taking all the stuff out of my apartment, putting it in a garage, and then moving it all back a few days later. It's really kind of ridiculous. What can I say? I like my apartment, and we did the math - it just doesn't make any sense to actually move. If we stay where we are, we start saving money in one month, including "moving" costs. If we actually relocate, it would take about 13 months at fully half of what we're paying in rent right now for us to see any savings, after you figure in moving costs, deposits, fees, etc. That's not a good equation. So instead, I'll be taking all my furniture down a flight of stairs, waiting a couple of days, and taking it all back up the same flight of stairs. It will be placed neatly back in its original location on new carpet, next to freshly painted walls, recaulked bathrooms, and sparkling, cleaned appliances.
I am particularly excited about the fridge. Our current roommate has a problem with having empty space in a refrigerator. It is bizarre. Our fridge will be overflowing and crowded with stuff. Who knows what it is? It's like Tetris to get that last cup of yogurt on the back of the shelf. When you open the freezer, an avalanche of frozen packages ensues. So we clean it out. We remove long-forgotten leftovers and freezer-burned chicken breasts. We throw out old, all-but-empty bottles of ketchup and salad dressing. The tupperware is reclaimed, and the fridge is once again navigable. Then, mysteriously, new, strange things appear in the fridge, usually within 24 hours. I am sure I have not gone to the store in this time. It is as if they are spontaneously created in the absence of excess. The overcrowding happens again, and the amount of food in there belonging to my roomate doubles or sometimes triples. It's as if he opens the door, notices space, and then is compelled to buy, buy, buy! until the space is gone. He fills it up with random things: package upon package of dubious-looking homemade ground meat, packages of sausage, hot dogs, pickled okra, econo-size frozen somethings, bottles of Miracle Whip and barbecue sauce. He doesn't need these items. He already has them. He buys them because there is space in the fridge. I hate it. Soon, he and all the white paper-wrapped packages stamped with "DEER" and "SAUSAGE" will be gone. They will not be missed.
In other news, Tandy Osro Lofland IV has secured a date with the woman he's been pining for for months. Her name is Breanna, and he hasn't stopped talking about her since he met her quite a while back. Apparently, his admiration from afar has shifted to expressed interest, and it's about time. He called me frantic because he had asked her out to dinner and a movie, planning the date for tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow won't work for her, so she suggested this evening. In girlspeak, that's great news for Tandy! Being a guy, Tandy missed this entirely and panicked. Instead of just shifting the dinner and movie plans back one day, he scrambled to come up with something else to do. He remembered that today is Wednesday, the day Lost comes on TV. So, he invited her over to his house to watch tv for their first date! What was he thinking?!? Clearly, he wasn't. Then he called me, and I straightened him out. By now, he has no doubt called her back and rearranged for a proper date. Best of luck, Tandy!
Busy, busy busy. English really needs to come up with another word to describe this. I'm tired of using the same one over and over again.
As you may have deduced from the post title, I did in fact do it eBay, and I must say it was a raging success. I have made a whopping $163.80 to date, with one auction still running. Considering that all I did to earn this money was rid myself of some of the ever-accumulating mass of stuff in my life, it is by far the easiest $160 I've ever made. (But that last $3.80 was pure work!)
The semester has started, the cycle begins again, and I am throwing myself into it with my usual vigor. Even though every semester is different, and as I advance through graduate school I venture ever further into completely uncharted territory, there is a pattern and a sameness to it that I find comforting. Not to wax poetic here, but it is a cycle, and while I may not know exactly what I'm doing, I do know the general form of the beast. It is finite. I have seen it before.
I feel that as I move through life, I earn the ability to "zoom out" further and further. It's like, at first, I am standing in front of something that is huge and looming - it's so tall and massive that I can't see the top of it, or even the sides. Then, as I grow a little and "zoom out", I recognize the thing as a tree. I zoom out a bit more and see that the tree is in a forest. Further still, I see that the forest is on an island, and the island is on an ocean, the ocean is on a planet, and so forth. Then, I can go back to standing in front of the huge tree with knowlege of it in context. I think this is called wisdom.
Swimming back from the deep end, I'm moving this weekend. Technically, I'm taking all the stuff out of my apartment, putting it in a garage, and then moving it all back a few days later. It's really kind of ridiculous. What can I say? I like my apartment, and we did the math - it just doesn't make any sense to actually move. If we stay where we are, we start saving money in one month, including "moving" costs. If we actually relocate, it would take about 13 months at fully half of what we're paying in rent right now for us to see any savings, after you figure in moving costs, deposits, fees, etc. That's not a good equation. So instead, I'll be taking all my furniture down a flight of stairs, waiting a couple of days, and taking it all back up the same flight of stairs. It will be placed neatly back in its original location on new carpet, next to freshly painted walls, recaulked bathrooms, and sparkling, cleaned appliances.
I am particularly excited about the fridge. Our current roommate has a problem with having empty space in a refrigerator. It is bizarre. Our fridge will be overflowing and crowded with stuff. Who knows what it is? It's like Tetris to get that last cup of yogurt on the back of the shelf. When you open the freezer, an avalanche of frozen packages ensues. So we clean it out. We remove long-forgotten leftovers and freezer-burned chicken breasts. We throw out old, all-but-empty bottles of ketchup and salad dressing. The tupperware is reclaimed, and the fridge is once again navigable. Then, mysteriously, new, strange things appear in the fridge, usually within 24 hours. I am sure I have not gone to the store in this time. It is as if they are spontaneously created in the absence of excess. The overcrowding happens again, and the amount of food in there belonging to my roomate doubles or sometimes triples. It's as if he opens the door, notices space, and then is compelled to buy, buy, buy! until the space is gone. He fills it up with random things: package upon package of dubious-looking homemade ground meat, packages of sausage, hot dogs, pickled okra, econo-size frozen somethings, bottles of Miracle Whip and barbecue sauce. He doesn't need these items. He already has them. He buys them because there is space in the fridge. I hate it. Soon, he and all the white paper-wrapped packages stamped with "DEER" and "SAUSAGE" will be gone. They will not be missed.
In other news, Tandy Osro Lofland IV has secured a date with the woman he's been pining for for months. Her name is Breanna, and he hasn't stopped talking about her since he met her quite a while back. Apparently, his admiration from afar has shifted to expressed interest, and it's about time. He called me frantic because he had asked her out to dinner and a movie, planning the date for tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow won't work for her, so she suggested this evening. In girlspeak, that's great news for Tandy! Being a guy, Tandy missed this entirely and panicked. Instead of just shifting the dinner and movie plans back one day, he scrambled to come up with something else to do. He remembered that today is Wednesday, the day Lost comes on TV. So, he invited her over to his house to watch tv for their first date! What was he thinking?!? Clearly, he wasn't. Then he called me, and I straightened him out. By now, he has no doubt called her back and rearranged for a proper date. Best of luck, Tandy!
posted by thejessicat at 11:03 AM
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