Mike Dawson ([info]mikedawsoncomic) wrote,
@ 2008-03-24 16:50:00
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Spring Cleaning
More clearing out this weekend. We donated four garbage bags worth of clothes and coats to the Salvation Army. Also, collected up about ten shopping bags filled with books and took those over too. According to the lady at the Salvation Army, ten bags is about seven bags too many from their point-of-view. She didn’t seem happy with me (I think because now it becomes her job to sort through all this crap), but I didn’t care because I’d already dumped everything in their back room, and was heading out the door.

On Sunday we were at my folks for Easter. In keeping with my sudden enthusiasm to discard unwanted things, I offered to throw out some of the junk of mine that has been crowding my parent’s basement. My mother liked the idea, but had to step away from me while I was doing it, because she got upset every time I threw away an old drawing that I did in High School or something.

From that clear-out, I now regret tossing away an embarrassing old paper that I’d written in college about an art exhibit that I’d gone to see at the MOMA. I don’t remember what the exhibit was, but it must have been conceptual, because my whole paper was about how I thought the whole thing was a bunch of b/s, and that the artist was scamming us all into thinking that it was really “deep” and full of meaning, and only chumps and pretentious fools would ever act like is was really “art”. I think I must have thought I was really In-Your-Face by writing a paper like this.

Anyway, the professor grading the paper took a lot of time to write me a detailed response (that was almost as long as my original essay) explaining what she had gotten out of the exhibit, and why I was wrong to dismiss what I’d seen. Looking back at this now, I think it’s something that would have been worth holding on to, because it now reminds me that we all go through a phase where we think we’re really ballsy and original and cutting-edge to sneer at so called “artsy” art. I clearly thought I was revealing to the world that the Emperor had no Clothes, but in reality I just didn’t really know what I was talking about.



Also: I found a grody old tooth of mine in one of the boxes, and had a good laugh bringing it up out of the basement and putting it in my wife’s hand without telling her what it was.


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[info]alexbot3000
2008-03-24 10:10 pm UTC (link)
My parents are getting ready to move out of the house I grew up in and everytime I would see them last year they would hand me some stack of old notebooks or folders of papers or some other stuff from my youth. I would, almost inevitably, quickly leaf through them and chuck them in the garbage. My parents, while not being so bothered to actually stop me, somehow seemed surprised or disappointed. I guess maybe they were hoping I'd be all "Oh my god! I can't believe you still have this! I'm so happy to see my notebook from social studies again!"
They do have some nostalgic value, for the doodles and of girls I had crushes on or characters long forgotten, but, especially when you live in an apartment, you have to draw the line somewhere.

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[info]mikedawsoncomic
2008-03-25 01:44 am UTC (link)
Now I am sort of feeling bad also about all the notes from girls and more personal type things that I tossed, but I was feeling pretty hardcore about clearing things away. Oh well, as you say, there's only so much room in an apartment.

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[info]tony_consiglio
2008-03-25 01:23 am UTC (link)
When my parents moved they had this nativity scene I made out of "Plasticine" clay back when I was twelve. I remember them putting it out under the Christmas tree for a couple of years and then it disappeared. I asked why they bothered keeping it after they'd stopped using it. My mother said, because I made it, and because it was religious. Since "Plasticine" clay never dries, it was a horrible mess, covered in matted dust, half melted- the wise men looked like they were stroking out. Some of the body parts had fallen off and someone had tried to surgically stick them back together.

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[info]mikedawsoncomic
2008-03-25 01:46 am UTC (link)
It's true that it would seem extra hard to toss something made by a child that was also religious. A lot of my High School drawings had religious overtones, b/c I used to be really into Jesus Christ Superstar in those days. Luckily, I didn't feel so bad about being sacrilegious, and all those drawings went in the trash too.

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