Vegas: A den of penultimate horror, aka the Storage Unit (and bonus sunset drive)

Do you want to play a game?

What scares you? Is it cradling your phone close to your face in the deep of night, huddled under your blankets with only the cool electronic glow to stave off the darkness as you read Nosleep or Creepypasta into the early hours? Or do you prefer visceral visual gore, a screen painted in vibrant and guttural shades of red and pink with all the imagination and texture the creation department could muster through gallons of corn syrup and latex? Or are you more into the slow creeping cerebral of psychological horrors? 

I like a fair bit of each, depending on my mood. Sometimes I want a slithering, spine-tingling spectacle that lingers and latches on, like a greasy film from a cheap lotion- the kind of creeping dread that H P. Lovecraft is so adept at crafting. Other days you just want a big absurd splashfest in the vein of Dead Alive by Peter Jackson (yes, the same guy who made Lord of the Rings) where the cringe-inducing pus-squirts and custard incidents, as revolting as they are, are still snuggly-wrapped in their blanket of Kiwi humor. There are even those days (probably more oft than naught) where a mostly-light-hearted rom-zom-comedy like Shaun of the Dead fits the bill best of all. The greatest thing about all these multifaceted horrors is that most can be left behind by simply shutting a book or pressing a button. Slam. Zap. The spookiness is over and mostly gone. Tentacles recoil into the ink stains forming the words on the page, and gnashing teeth fade to black. 

But these horrors are all firmly rooted in fiction, so at the end of the day, no amount of fear or anxiety they induce is based on any real, imminent threats to you. Movies, books, even terrifying-anxiety-inducing-nightmare fests of a game like Dead Space are entertainment, for better or for worse. These are outlets that allow us to confront these things in safety, shouting at the clumsy victim of the moment as they stumble and stagger their way through their scripted slaughter. Reality itself provides no shortage of macabre and mortifying material to contend with, and for me, this often manifests as an overwhelming abundance of stuff. I strive for a minimalist sort of existence and having hopped continents several times now while living out of one or two suitcases found it extremely liberating. Less is more, they say, and whoever they are they've got the right idea. There are few things quite so deeply, unnervingly horrific as the storage unit. A place where your excess stuff goes to be forgotten, locked away in a spare bedroom you pay to forget. It's ridiculous- instead of, say, getting rid of the detritous that ways you down, it accumulates to the point of needing an additional offsite location to put it...so not only are you paying for the house you yourself need space to live in, but a separate home for your stuff. What sense does that make?! It's like the dead coming to life, but it's all your dead stuff that's chasing you down, draining your finances and patience,  hoarding their dust-bunnies and potential spider-nests in wait until the day they can strike you down...

A fucking horror show, I tell you.

Organization: Closet Deep Cleaning

Before!

And after!

We moved into a fairly small space last year- "we" here meaning Antho, myself, and our two rat cages full of squeaky little sweeties. This meant consolidating two fairly full wardrobes into one small closet with a few additional drawers and cabinets thrown in for good measure. When we first moved in together back in 2015 we had a two bedroom townhouse with two stories and a garage, so we had a TON of space for just two of us! We converted our spare bedroom into a walk-in closet with one wall for each of us to hang all of our clothes...and something about all that space made us feel compelled to try to fill it. We'd go to thrift stores and have a lot of fun picking out  furniture, new ensembles and finding things that we might not have shelled out the cash for brand new... and while that was all fun, it was really quite expensive. Not only did we have to pay for all the clothes and STUFF we bought- which, while relatively cheap enough having been purchased primarily at thrift stores- but all that additional space we "needed" every month. It really added up! And really, we barely used most of it. When I moved to Korea to pursue my art for awhile, we decided that the financially wise thing to do would be to have Antho move in with his grandma so that he wasn't shelling out all that additional cash for all the empty space we weren't utilising. She had gone through a tragic loss around the time, too, so our intentions were for Antho to help her out around the house and with the bills while saving cash until I returned... It didn't quite pan out that way, but such is life.  That process started us towards reducing our accumulation of stuff, however, as we went from having an entire townhouse to ourselves to having a corner of a garage, a single room, and a little bit of backyard space for our tie-dye, which meant condensing.

 While I was in Korea I pretty much lived out of a single suitcase and a small closet in the room I rented from my employer. I ended up paying about $350 a month for a big comfy sofa to sleep on and a closet with access to a kitchen, bathroom and laundry. It wasn't a bad deal, all told, and I really enjoyed my stay. Food is amazing and affordable in Korea, and transportation is reasonable and efficient, too. Having moved overseas several times now (first to Japan, then back to the US, then to Korea, then back to the US) I've found it really refreshing to re-appraise my attachment to material things from time to time. I always feel so much more refreshed and at ease when I have less, which seems counter-intuitive. I was in Japan for over two years and while there accumulated a lot of stuff to fill my little apartment with, and when I left I had to spend quite a bit of money shipping all that stuff back to myself. It was expensive and inconvenient, but I guess for the most part I'm glad that I went for it as I've accumulated a collection of Japanese fashion and cooking magazines from that time that I hope to eventually translate and share. While in Korea I stocked up on cosmetics, skin care and sheet masks because they are bountiful and affordable...but again, this is an accumulation of stuff, which it is quite beneficial to sort, organise and purge several times throughout the year. We have a goal of eventually living out of our van and traveling, so we'll need to get rid of quite a bit more before we can do that. I'm viewing 2018 as my year to reduce, use up, and reappraise my things.  While I've bought a few skin care items (sorry, not sorry) I'm trying not to indulge in any of the new makeup or stationary pretties I might want and reduce my overall shopping. I want to use up the sheet masks I have taking up residence in our fridge (rather than food), use up my insane collection of pens, use up all my BB and CC creams, so on and so forth. I'm grateful for the bounty and the opportunities that availed me the possibility of acquiring so many things, but I think it's high time to trim the fat. I like the Mari Kondo (aka KonMari) approach of asking whether each item sparks joy in you before deciding what to do with it, but to each their own. Whatever organisation method works for you is the one to use!

When I first began condensing my clothes, I wrote up an inventory list of all the things going into the tote so I would have an idea what was in it should I go hunting for a specific item. I like to be organised and stay on top of all my things, which is generally an uphill struggle, but I try.

For this particular session, I sorted all my sheet masks and sorted through my clothes until I filled three large garbage bags with donations. I could still donate more, but this was a step in the right direction and some advancements taken in the right direction are better than none, right?