If Only Anvils Really Did Fall Out of the Sky

I'd like the world to institute a standardized test covering all the aspects of human interaction and common courtesy. If you take the test and fail, you have to enroll in a class that teaches these things to you. For example: It is NEVER OK to get up at 6:45 on a Saturday morning, put on wooden clogs and start performing numbers from Riverdance, especially when the odds are that your insomniac downstairs neighbor is trying to sleep. Now if after having taken this class you fail the test a second time, you are an idiot and an ACME anvil will deploy from the sky and land on your head repeatedly until it knocks the stupid out of you. Then and only then will you be permitted back into society.

Seriously? 6:45 in the morning? It never occurred to my imbecile whore of an upstairs neighbor that I MIGHT be asleep? We have wooden floors! There is no carpeted cushion of silence between her floor and my ceiling. It's bad enough that she click-clacks around all day and night like a Clydesdale in her hooker heels but now she's taken to folk dancing in them at the ass-crack of dawn. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

The worst part of all this is that there's nothing that CAN be done about it. We aren't getting better. We are spiraling downwards, circling the drain. And I'm only talking about little, insignificant daily annoyances. Don't even get me started on the evil things we do to each other in the name of war, religion and general depravity. That is another rant for another day. Right now I have a strongly worded note to write and post on Clompy's door. I just hope that she can read. I'll keep it simple. There are plenty of monosyllabic words I'm sure I can come up with to express my feelings on the matter.

Nest Not Lest Ye Be Nested.

I think I'm suffering from some sort of weird psychological condition that is preventing me from furnishing my new apartment with anything more than a bed, computer desk and television stand. I desperately need bookshelves to house the multitude of books that I insisted on carting across three states and yet every time I go to make the purchase, I just can't. Either I don't like the size, the depth of the shelf space or the color or the finish, or any number of other ridiculous things that really have no actual bearing on the functionality of the unit whatsoever. It's the same when trying to pick out a nightstand or a chair or even mixing bowls. All I can think is, do I really want to accumulate all this stuff again? Part of the allure of moving here was getting rid of pretty much everything I owned and starting over. I have never been a minimalist. I enjoy buying things as much as the next American, but suddenly the thought of anchoring myself to a place with all the burdens of things that don't fit neatly inside 10 or 12 boxes scares the consumerism right out of me.

It sounds ridiculous, I know. I just can't seem to allow myself to connect to this place. I keep thinking about how easy it would be to just get up and leave if I don't acquire anything and then I wonder what the hell I'm doing worrying about leaving when I haven't even been here a full year. So why does the fact that I have so little feel so comforting? I've always been quick to get rid of things because I'm not very sentimental and I HATE clutter, but this is something else. Maybe I have Obsessive Compulsive Spartanism. Maybe I just need a good interior decorator.