#reverb10: 11 Things

11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting ride of these 11 things change your life?

December 11, 8:00 pm: I like this prompt. It is a list and the number is unusual.

1. All the recyclables that are cluttering my bedroom. With a clean bedroom I sleep better.
2. Clothes from before Fresco was born. They’re never going to fit. Until I am 80 and then I won’t have anywhere to wear them. This will make more room for clothes that do fit and / or other things that need to go in my closet. It will also close the door on my pre-childbirth hips.
3. Impulse purchases. It’s how I end up with so many $5 t shirts that I can’t wear because I was in too much of a hurry to try them on but come on, $5 t-shirts are all alike, I’m sure it’ll fit! They don’t. They never do. Ever.
4. All the socks with holes that I am never going to darn, make into clever arm sleeves or puppets or jackets for dachshund.
5. Baby stuff. I am not having any more babies. And also, some of it is worth money and I have always intended to sell. Money is good, I think we could use some.

December 12, 8:00 am: I don’t like this prompt. I don’t have anything else I want to eliminate.

OK. I do. I want to eliminate:

6. Self-doubt
7. Non-productive fear
8. Procrastination

but really, do we think this is likely? I want to eliminate these things all the time. It still hasn’t happened. I’ll do it tomorrow.

Ha ha ha.

The things I want to eliminate are not things I can control. All the things I can control, I have eliminated already, except for the physical pieces of stuff around the house that I haven’t had time to get rid of. Top secret: I kind of like being in control, so I exercise my limited control as often as I can. But just in case this is a magical exercise where the expression makes manifest, I would also like to eliminate:

9. Fresco’s apparent inability to get enough sleep to make him a tolerable human being. This would make us all a lot more relaxed.
10. The cat’s apparent inability to eat his food without all of us watching him. This is just a general irritant.
11. My apparent inability to throw my hands up about irritants general and specific and say “Que Sera Sera! It’s 4 am, let’s eat popcorn!” but instead get stressed and grumpy about them.

All right! Good luck, me!