The World of Crafts

Y'know, I was thinking how it might be fun to conjure a new hobby...

I like to make stuff with my hands. Cookin', paintin', refinishin'... trouble is, everything I do is messy, and I live in a small apartment with no real workspace. So, I need a fixin' hobby that uses creativity, precision, and resourcefulness, that isn't messy, doesn't require a large work area, and doesn't need me having to buy more than, say, seven tools to accomplish.

So, a-ha: lamps! I could make custom lamps. Start taking a boo around all the old shops and finding vases I can turn into somethin' funky now and then, for kicks.

***

I had a moment this morning. The great purge must continue. It's time to get rid of more shit. I'm burdened by memories of my mother's life kind of everywhere, and knick-knacks from a past I'd like to believe is better than it really was, and I'm just tired of the clutter. I'm tired of feeling confined.

Which is good. It means I'm finally realizing I can disconnect my feeling for the person from the supposed importance of the thing. Things. Silly, silly things. Sort of. If they weren't all I had left of people, places, and things from yesteryear.

...Funny. Sitting here, taking a couple mouthfuls of my French-Canadian Onion Soup (my recipe; 1/2 cup of rye, 3/4 cup of wine... heh, heh. Cures what ails ya. In a batch, people, not a bowl.), a thought occured to me. Another little project, and one to aid ridding clutter.

(This is great. When needing a drink: Soupybooze. With carmelized onions. When it's below freezing out. Some kinda digression, but... All done with soupybooze, so.)

But take things that sort of mean something to me, not aesthetically shazam or anything, just average little shit that holds significance. Like this heart-shaped box I have of my mothers that still smells of her baby powder inside after eight years. Every year or so, I open it, inhale, and put it away again with a smile. But do I really need to go there? And it's red cardboard with gold leaf on it, something you'd get for a buck at the Loonie Store or something. So. Things like that. Mementoes.

...Take them, and photograph them, and print 'em all off, and make a really, really good collage of it, poster-size, drymount it, and frame it for the washroom or something. And Sally-Ann all the newly memorialized items that are causing me to go bonkers these days.

I swear to god, I'm having fantasies about living in a wide-open loft with sixteen foot cielings and 1,400 square feet. Ahh, how nice my furnishings would be there. They're nice here, but in a place like that, whoo! Appreciation from afar. Fabulous. But that ain't gonna happen. Rent's on the uppity-up these days in town, and I'm not willing to fork over $900 or more for a meagre place in average parts of town, or into the thousands for nice neighbourhoods and a den or second bedroom. No. I'll keep my $686.80 apartment with heat and hot water included, since it's so purty and my neighbourhood's getting freakishly gentrified, and there's a 4% per annum max rent raise, thank you... and I'll get rid of some clutter.

And when the Olympics roll into town in 2010 and rent's gone right through the roof, I'll be paying $743 a year, and will have the skytrain just a kilometre from home. Sweet.

And less clutter. I will purge. It's a guttin', kids. And I get a photography craft out of it. Sweet!