I'M HAVING A GOOD WEEK FOR HEAPING THINGS

I cleared out a big space in my living room, and now I'm making large heaps of my belongings. This scheme is designed to make obvious exactly what I've got to organize in my house. Not incidently, it will also help me make an estimate on the net worth of my house so I can decide how much renter's insurance to get. (Renter's insurance sounds like a terrific no-lose idea. Everything in my house insured (except musical instruments, which are insured seperately) even if it gets stolen while I'm not in the house. Road bike.) Ok, heaps. Yes, the heaps only reach partway up the distance to the ceiling, but I've got a feeling that at least one of the heaps will kiss the sky before I'm through. If I had to estimate now, I'd say it would either be the "documentation" heap or the "sentimental crap" head. I've got documentation for everything I own, but I've got sentimental crap from almost anything I've experience from birth on up to now. There used to be a lot more of it; over the years, only the most meaningful of crap has been retained, but this is still a goodly amount of things which are pretty much useless for anything but getting all choked up over as I remember earlier times. They can't be replaced. For the purposes of renter's insurance, they're worth $0. Ah, who would want to put a price on memories anyhow? I mean, I could go buy a few important fragments of Big Trak parts, sure, but it wouldn't be the same. And my multi-hundred disk collection of music MODs that I wrote on the Amiga would be lost forever, never again to be forced upon my friends when they can't run away and I'm feeling like embarassing myself.

You would think that equipment would be the biggest heap. This would be true if I put all of it in a single pile. I've split the equipment into seperate heaps based on how often I use it, or how useful it is overall. The heap of "I don't ever use it" is disturbingly huge, especially compared to the "can't live without it" heap to its right. Were I moving to a foreign country, only the rightmost equipment heap would come with me. Perhaps not even that, if I were changing occupations and hobbies at the same time. That's not in my plans right now, though. So all this crap is probably coming with me when I move. Unless it turns out to be too big to get in the new place.