Threads.

Woke up and finished filling the trash bag. A few shirts I didn't like emblazoned with logos of bands I did and vice versa. Another stretched hoodie I'll not wear again ever. Got the bag full enough it started to fray, threw on pants, shoes and a hat and drug the bag to the 7, hopped off a few stops later. Walked across a long parking lot and tossed the bag in a big blue bin with wheels.

It's been more than a few years I've been meaning to do a clothing purge. But I've always meant to scour the various used clothing stores of the city-- get the most bang for my buck. I've hit Bon Voyage with mixed success, Madison's with none, Red Light with maybe one shirt offloaded? A few weeks ago I grabbed the most egregious of the clothing items and let them slide down the Addison trash chute.

But today's selections were different, nearly sentimental, nearly practical, all the reasons you keep things when you maybe shouldn't. Or should, if you were actually gonna hit every thrift shop. If you were really going to take those pants to a tailor, those shoes to a cobbler. Really going to cut all those logos out and make them into patches.

Anyway, after, with some of these items, years of equivocating and procrastinating, I got rid of them, freeing up a lot of shelf and drawer space.

But it's more the psychological weight. Over the weekend and start of the week there've been a few other things that, for privacy and practicality's sake, aren't worth detailing, except for them having similiarly been weighing on me, and now I feel. . . lighter? To a degree I hadn't anticipated.

Of course, it is dark and rainy and I'm drinking an Alaskan Porter, so there's a limit to Just How Light I'll feel.

But this has already been a year of upheaval, and it seems that's a trend that will continue, for better and worse, so making the best.

9/30: Half Lives of T-Shirts

Some are for life, or until some future

spouse's disgust makes for disappearance.

A nice clothing swap in the country. 

The big vintage store in the sky; just

tell me it went peacefully,

without a lot of fraying, or rips.

Some are for a summer, or 

an afternoon-- the joke so inside

It defies explanation, let it context

those photos from the time in

suburban Winco parking lot,

the one-off picnic you swore would

become tradition.

Some are goals. Ten fewer pounds.

A greater familiarity with the band's discography.

Twenty fewer pounds. The right blazer to

accent. Thirty fewer pounds. The roughly

same amount of pounds but arranged

better. I'll wear this shirt again some day.

But most, in this pile on the

clean hardwood floor of an apartment too

small for a lot of clothes, are for the memories,

and false promises. No heart for the trash bin,

the good will pile, these identities I no

longer wear and must admit; I'll never

make that quilt, that wall hanging, these

shirts will never be patches.

So they gotta go. If it's supposed to happen, I know I 

hit enough second hand shops, ruffling through

others heartfelt discards, I'll find them again.