I am a slut, in the old sense of the word (so, the untidy kind—rather than the sexy kind. I don’t approve of using that word in the sexy way—whoever’s appendages a woman allows to be jabbed variously about her person remains her business alone.) I like to think of my mess as ordered chaos—a highly specific, complex filing system whose cataloguing machination is known to me alone—despite how messy my house may look to an uninitiated outsider.
After recently finishing a degree (I will soon be ‘Sarah, MASTER OF MUSIC’. Cower before me, puny mortals) I have decided to clean out everything I own and throw most of my accumulated unnecessary possessions away. This is an impulse acted upon many a time before, yet it seems that every time I attempt to purge myself of material goods, I discover a trove of new things that are so sentimentally significant or weird that I simply CAN’T get rid of them. I wrote a thing like this way back when I was new to blogging (It is entirely possible that that was the last time I properly cleaned my house and why am I admitting to this on the internet? It’s also true that I still haven’t thrown any of those things out. Ugh. My life.)
ANYWAY. Here is my most recent collection of things from the past that I should bin but won’t because FEELINGS.
These posters.
A collection of these GIANT SPARKLY SPACE KITTIES have been collecting dust in the top of a wardrobe for a good 15 years. I had almost entirely forgotten about them until last week and now I feel like my life will be lacking if they are not on display ALWAYS. There is no argument against GIANT SPARKLY SPACE KITTIES.
Bardot ephemera
This is the most tragic sew-on-patch ever, commemorating the pitifully short-lived Popstars-created girl-band, Bardot.
I really like the idea of ‘forever’ being the period between the years 2000 and 2002. Alongside this patch, I would like to include in this lot, their extended discography and numerous VHS tapes, all of which I have in a cupboard. Probably the most brilliant thing about them was that about two songs in, their songwriters just kind of gave up, giving rise to the most wonderful nonsense. Thing like:
‘I’m out of the fire and into the swimming pool…I bet you’re still, a two, three, four letter word’
‘The love we made was incomplete, like the shoes on your feet’
Egads, that was a good two years for music.
Terrible gimmick-y hair things.
I was SO EXCITED when I rediscovered my Quick-braid. Sure, it hadn’t worked all that well when I got it as a Christmas present many years ago, but could that not have been the fault of my unskilled, childish hands? Surely it would now be no match for my near two-decades-of-piano-given dexterity, right? It still had WORKING batteries and everything. Oh my god. It was the most exciting thing ever.
The advertising that went with it showed such fancy, fancy braids.
In actual fact, what you get is:
The result is only bitter, bitter disappointment. Bitter disappointment and a mass of matted hair.
Questionably named old toys.
While going through the shed, I came across some of my early childhood toys. I hadn’t realised until recently but my parents must have had a really good time naming my dolls for me. I had two rubber duckies called Gregory Peck and Doug E. Duck. However, the best one was my knitted Scottish man, Och-Aye (the noo).
There was some really weird naming stuff going on in my street about that time. I also had a cat called Stoolie (not because she had three legs, but, as my father puts it, because she was a ‘little shit’) our neighbours on one side had a black cat called O.J. (because he liked Orange Juice, my parents insisted…) and on the other there were two cats, one black and one white, called Zambia and Alaska.
Anyway. I miss writing and I miss having a thesis to write. I am filled with an existential sadness. Now my house is clean I might go and start that PhD…
kirbasaurusrex 