thoughts on all the crap that accumulates

I've already spoken about my penny collection. It is not a collection in the traditional sense. There's nothing distinguishing or comprehensive about it. I don't search out rare Indian pennies, nor do I even consciously add to it. It is, rather, a collection that owes its origin to indecision. What else do I do with these damn pennies?

What motivates this? Neuroses? Christian charity? Laziness? I really don't know. But as I look around my apartment I see other such collections, the implications of which, in the state I am in right now (a fragile, exhausted state), I find worrying.

Hangers. I have fucking tons of hangers. Almost half of my closet is given to unused wire hangers, the product of thousands of trips to the dry cleaners. Surely I should do something! Can't I return these hangers? Can I recycle them? I don't know. But when I put a crisp shirt on in the morning, I put the unused hanger back on the bar, pushed off to the side, where it joins many such others.

Plastic bags. I have one giant plastic bag, from Bed Bath and Beyond (what did I buy that was so big???), and now, whenever I come back from the grocer or the liquor store, I crumple up my plastic bag[s] and put them into the giant bag, which I keep, in my kitchen, under a table. Off to the side, but visible. I don't know how many smaller balled, plastic bags are in there, but I would say hundreds.

Now, in fairness, I do occasionally reuse these. Sometimes I'll put my lunch in them. Sometimes I'll use a plastic bag to hold old newspapers which I will then leave outside for recycling.

Oh! The old newspapers! How they gather! On a file cabinet in my kitchen there is a stack of papers, faded and pink, which lean precariously against my fridge. These I do recycle, but not with any great regularity. I let them build until action is unavoidable.

Bottles, I suppose, are the other collection I see before me. I store empty wine and beer bottles under my kitchen sink. I just counted. 37 bottles are under my sink. There have been more.

I think that the fact that I have a small apartment emphasizes these very natural collections. And I think this is all pretty normal. I have, for example, been over at my friends' house and opened a cabinet to get a glass, and I found tons of bubble wrap. What's all this bubble wrap? I yelled. I never really got a good explanation. I mean we all save things, right? And it's not always because they are worth saving. But still, sometimes I find these collections of unwant, of refuse, mocking me and my slow, habitual ways.