Maketh the man.
The other night I went to dinner at my cousin's house. She lives with her husband in the burbs and I hadn't seen her, her husband or their house in four years. It was a nice-enough meal that started with cocktails and ended with us all sitting around looking at Google Earth making interested and polite noises.
For ages, I couldn't figure out what was bothering me about their spacious red-brick home. And then I worked it out.
They didn't have any 'stuff'.
I mean - nothing. They didn't have anything. The kitchen bench was utterly bare but for a kettle. No spice rack, no cook books. Not even a cutlery carousel. There was no evidence of ingredients used for dinner. No eggtimer. No fruit basket. Not one teatowel. Nothing. It was strange.
Every other room in the house was the same. Essential pieces of furniture like couch, tv, bed, bath. But nothing else to suggest that actual people lived within. No dog-eared book on the bedside table. No toothpaste or make-up bag. Not one bath bead. No pictures on the wall. Not even a pair of slippers on the floor of the master bedroom.
THESE PEOPLE WERE ALIENS TO ME.
I don't doubt that everything was in there somewhere packed away. I'm not suggesting that my cousin has poor dental hygiene and doesn't floss. I know she reads. I know they must use oregano occasionally.
But what's wrong with putting things out there for the world to see? Does our 'stuff' not say something about who we are and what we like?
My living room is a shrine to crap me and my beloved housemate don't need. Copies of Dazed magazine with the Kings of Leon on the cover. A fish tank full of fake pine trees. A shelf of porn videos. A duffelcoat and beanie discarded next to the heater. Five trillion records. Two separate scarves part-way through being knitted. Half-opened Lindt chocolate. Portraits of naked Tahitian women. Peacock ornaments. Statues of tigers. A sculpture that appears to be part-sheep part-eagle. Five cameras. A light-up picture of the Last Supper.
Every time I walk into our living room I have a sense of place. I know who we are and what kind of useless shit we like. It may be full of clutter; disorganised, chaotic. But there's no question it's ours.
I don't know. I think I'd much rather live somewhere falling apart at the seams with books and scraps of material and discarded undies on the dining room table than somewhere that seems to be a display home. Neatness unnerves me.
812 days til the next election.
Comments
um ... um ... quite simply - you're a slob - it's all polished surfaces now, clean lines, uncluttered benches, a kitchen now should resemble the laboratory in the cornoner's office for performing autopsies - get with it.
dude, i totally concur.
you've seen my mother's house. it's neatness gone mad. and it kills me.
where did i come from?
This sounds like the ultimate struggle between my girlfriend and I.
My parents were hoarders. Early on, we moved a four story house and an office into a single story smallish house. From then on, flat surfaces did not exist and you had to turn sideways to slip into some rooms. Fattyboombas were not invited.
My little chicky lived with normal people and loves stuff. Loves it. She's also a muso, musos love stuff. They live to play and live to acquire much muso stuff.
Physchological scaring has made me minimalistic, if I lived by myself I'd own a black and white TV and a foozball table.
I hate houses like that too. It begs for a personality and they always feel cold.
Although there is such a thing as tidy clutter which you will find at my house.
I'm with you Adam. But I have a mattress and an ashtray, so that with the foozball and the telly might be a little too much. Can you live without the foozball?
Wurd.
This is the reason I went to RMIT instead of Deakin and lived in Sydney road instead of Burwood.
The stories of Sydney road. The organised chaos, the tiny shops you walked past without realising were there, the dirt, the crazies... it all comes together into a real sense of place.
Deakin/Burwood are like bland, sterile hospitals with no personality. "Anytown", Australia.
was that or-ree-gah-no or oh-reg-ee-no?
I knew someone with a house like this and what's more he didn't like animals or listen to music.
He was the weirdest person I have ever met.
Fluffy, compromise? The foozball table can be our courtyard feature point.
Weirdos. Quite often people step into my room and experience total sensory overload (my family home is the same); I always reckon if they can't handle it, they can begone.
Having said that, I always enjoy the relative lack of 'stuff' when I go away camping or to South Australia; I always think "this is nice, I could live like this forever"". Of course, I couldn't.
They are clearly aliens posing as humans. Put on your aluminium hat so they can't hear what you are thinking, then destroy them all with a flamethrower. It's the only way. The human race will thank you.
my friends house is sterile. i covet it in some ways because she has no dust and i sneaze every time i walk into my home. but i always feel uncomfortable, like i'm going to leave a mark and when other friends visit she'll say: "that's where the dirty person sat".
i once dated a guy who had no stuff. And what's more, he lived in one of those weird apartments in the city that feels like a hotel room. I found the whole situation so disturbing I felt I could no longer keep seeing him.
Lack of stuff suggests lack of an imaginative life.
No stuff can mean transient but those tools were married. Fuck em! Go klepto in their house and start stealing stuff from their cupboards and drawers. If they ever challenge you - just say "What stuff - You ain't gone none. don't pretend that you have. Freaks!"
My sister and I came from the same home, and she is a neat freak with general lack of stuff, while I am a hoarder (to some extent) and as messy as I can handle. We were sitting around having drinks at her place on the weekend and I was observing just how freakishly tidy it was when an incident occurred that is very representative of the two different worlds we live in. A guest demonstrated to us their ability to flick beer bottle caps. We all laughed and watched the cap float through the air and roll under the couch. This is where our worlds divide: my house = the bottle cap would have remained under the couch until I either A. moved house and the removalists shifted the couch revealing the much forgotten cap... or B. dropped a coin/food product that rolled under the couch and had to be retrieved by my straining arm, and the cap was scrapped out accidently; my sister's house = she promptly walked across the room, shifted the couch, picked up the bottle cap and put it in the bin.
Two sisters, different worlds.
Do you think they (the freaky neat people) sometimes fight about whether an item is 'leave-out-able'? Like a toaster versus kettle 'neat-off'? Guess it comes down to which one matches the fridge better.
These are the type of people the alphabetise the tinned section of their pantry.
Fear it.
Urgh!
Don't they know the life code 'It's all about the story'?
What are these alphabetised pantry people giving the rest of us?
I know that this comment will ruin my popularity out there in the blogsphere.......
but what is wrong with people who don't feel the need to display to the world "Yes, I am a slave to advertising and the need to buy useless crap I don't need."
The latte left....
I don't think that comment will ruin your popularity at all.
I don't think it's about displaying brandnames but rather feeling free to display the items you do have rather than tucking everything away. Everyone is defined by some extent by the crap they own, be it a walking frame, a harley or a foozball table. Tucking everything away almost says, "I don't want you to know me."
Generally I'm hearing you. All for the eclectic mess. Some consternation though at:
"Statues of tigers"
Plural?
1 in each corner?
Ms Fits, are you sure your cousin and her husband aren't having marital problems they're keeping to themselves?
It almost sounds as if they've both moved out and are living separate lives now, but have kept the house empty so as to keep up appearances when eclectic, messy cousins come snooping around looking for gossip to relay to the world on her radio show ...
And la nadine, to answer your question, try here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0818402539/ref=pd_sxp_f/002-4384882-2507206?v=glance&s=books
If that link doesn't work or it doesn't paste into this comment section properly, it's a good book that once helped me answer the same question. It has pretty pictures and clarifies a few points that always troubled me about my body.
I can lend you my rather dog-earred copy, if you like. Alternatively, wait a few years and your nephew can fill in the blanks for you. :)
Thanks Adam, but obviously I have a different viewpoint to most. As seminal punk band Fugazi said in their song Merchandise, "You are not what you own."
A person should never be defined by their possessions; they should be judged by thier beliefs AND their actions.
I agree dude.
People should be judged by their beliefs and actions, but I think the world around us uses a far quicker means of judgement.
It is unfortunate that people are judged far more on their posture, manner of speaking and look than their beliefs and actions... I guess it's all part of the human survival mechanism.
Gee, your place sounds kinda sad too.
Maybe they don't trust you?!
"Does our 'stuff' not say something about who we are and what we like?"
I think that's the very reason for hiding it all. They live in a world that gets scared by any encounter with a lack of homogeneity and conformity. You mustn't show in what ways you might be different from others because that'll put them off you rather than interest them in you. It's considered better to seem blank than to seem different.
Unknown: your sister's the elder child, isn't she?
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