I have enough shirts. There’s one deep dresser drawer, two closet shelves, a plastic bedside cubby, and various hung items. But I adore wearing new ones. Things just get old fast in my world. I need variety and unpredictability. But there are two problems: no room and no money. The room part would be solved if I did what I feel like doing, which is to get rid of anything less than a couple of months old. But these are perfectly good items. They only suffer from familiarity.
Some things improve with age. Appreciation of life’s many shades is enriched given time’s passing. Instruments become shaded and nuanced. Things of true beauty perhaps all improve, though there may be a breaking point where either enough is enough or decay sets in. I don’t consciously think about such issues, but I suppose I do make choices based on them. While I may think I’m going with my natural gut feeling about something, I could just be having some sort of knee-jerk, weirdly premeditated response to whether I perceive something as fresh and new and fun, or used and cliche and boring. It might only seem natural on the surface. Maybe that explains my new diet of the month, for instance, the Skinny Bitch. Is it great because it makes me feel better (both physically and ethically) or because it makes me feel different? This adoration of novelty is only part of how I make my choices, I know. I am (hopefully) using a complex assortment of drives, adding up to a given course of action. Unfortunately I err on the side of wishy-washy quite a bit, especially when no one guides me. I do better with a bit of nudging. I wish I liked being nudged…. It’s okay sometimes.

originally published on 10/18/07