Tossing

I'm a pack rat, yet on occasions I am ruthless about simplifying. This is such an occasion and everything is fair game. One of the first items to go-- my button boards. Four large bulletin boards with buttons-- political, sports, idiosyncratic slogans, logos from businesses. At least five hundred buttons ended up in a large trash bag, along with the cork boards. I saved five buttons-- a 1980 Gay Pride Boston button, a 1983 Stepping Out With Pride button, a 1987 Out for Good button I bought at the Washington March, a 1989 Stonewall generation of Pride button, and a small purple " It's a Nice Day to be Out button." Everything else ended up as collateral damage.

Then I decided to throw out twenty-two years of monthly book club newsletters. Once a month I'd go down to the local franchise copy store and run off twenty- five copies of the newsletter. Collate, staple, mail. Then I saved each newsletter, twenty-two years-- in a binder, never to be read again.

Nothing is sacred, everything can be sacrificed. If it's too heavy, too old, too, out of date. Euphoria sets in as item after item lines up to be tossed into the wastebasket. Once beginning the euphoria, fed by larger piles of "to go" items, gains momentum.

Still more to do...