Stuff I "Collect"

And by "collect" I don't mean "acquire as much as possible to display and maybe trade with other like-minded geeks in on-line groups dedicated to collectors of whatever-it-is." No. I mean "collect" as in "like it a lot and am happy to have more."

I was thinking about this because someone asked me what I like in case someone wanted to give me something, since I'm weeding out stuff and really don't need anything. Well, with the exception of the dress-maker's mannequin from DharmaTrading that I'm still waiting to find delivered to my front porch--I need one of those. Other than that, though, I don't need anything. I don't have things I want; if I need or want something, I go get it, and I'm working on never needing or wanting much of anything. And, yes, that does seem to make it difficult if someone wanted to give me something.

But no! Not at all, because there are some things I love a lot and am always happy to have more of. Little white twinkly lights, for instance. You know, those cheapo ones they have everywhere for a couple dollars every holiday season, and you stock up on them and then put them up in every room? Or, OK, maybe that's just me: *I* have them in almost every room, and I usually get a bunch more when they go on clearance after Christmas. I like the white lights on white cord/wire, and I usually get about 10 boxes. This year, however, I did not. When I finally remembered to go look, all they had were the green-wired ones, and those are just tacky in the house--the wire shows up way more than the white wire, even on my bright walls. So now I'm lightless and have learned my lesson: I'll be buying a TON of those next year on December 26th.

If I remember.

Other things I love and am always happy to find~~Oh, wait: these are something I *cannot* find--I have half a dozen of these that I bought when I was in high school for 49 cents each at Pier One and haven't been able to find since, not even in San Francisco's Chinatown when we were there:

I'd love to have more of these. We both love how they sound, and I've got the few we do have strategically placed so the vents blow across them.

This is The EGE's collection of walking sticks.

 Now that there are loose dogs all over our neighborhood (our vet, who does the neutering for Animal Control, said that there are only two officers working at any given time because all the rest--guess what? Guess where they went? Everybody all together now: went to the oil field. And because Midland is tied at #5 of the metropolitan areas in the US with the lowest unemployment rate, at 3.9%, they're not going to fill those slots any time soon), we always carry a stick of some sort when we walk. I've been attacked by a dog in the street twice in the last 20 years, and I don't intend for it to happen again. Also, eventually, we'll be all decrepit and need to have a stick to hold us up as we creep around the neighborhood. By then we should have quite a collection. We got a metal trash can (actually had to buy it new--you'd think you could find one of these at a garage sale or something, but no--and spray painted it copper to match the roof and then filled it with sticks we've picked up over many years, including one from the Santa Fe Flea Market and one from an artist in Mountainaire.

I also like outdoor wind chimes with really good sound. I have discovered that I do not, however, like wooden ones. They sound clunky and drive me nuts, and I wish I hadn't bought the two I have. They were on clearance and sounded cool in the store, but I don't love them. That bulky one kind of in the middle down there, to the left of the red hummingbird feeder, is made of tin cans and came from the garage of an estate sale, the kind of thing nobody else wanted but that I loved.

I love bits and pieces of cool fabric--tapestry, silk, silk and rayon velvet, wool that can be fulled and used as felt, leather (although not pig suede--the most common thing I find in thrift stores). I like bits that have old embroidery or beading on them.

Cool patches and labels from clothing--I just started working on this skirt and have used up all I've got and now need more. The cooler and funkier, the better.

 The Colt patch is, I think, from when my dad coached baseball. I have no idea where the blue and yellow one in the center came from. The Superman patches have been in a drawer for at least 25 years. The rainbow patches were some of the ones we wore on overalls 35 years ago, when we had matching pair and before rainbow meant anything other than just plain old rainbow and we each had a collection of patches and pins and rainbow-hued suspenders. Long ago. I don't know where the Boy Scouts one came from; I don't know anyone who was a Boy Scout. Most of the others are labels I removed from thrifted clothing. I used to have a whole lot of these but at some point figured I wasn't going to do anything with them and either threw them out or gave them to someone. And now I wish I hadn't, of course.

The W.A. Green one under the pocket on the left up there--that was from a black wool coat I fulled. I love it because it reminds me of labels on my mother's clothes back when I was a kid.

I collect cool rocks. My friend Bob shares some of his collection with me; and I, with him. I do not expect anyone ever to send me any rocks, of course. Although I have paid to have some shipped home from Artfest, which is kind of something maybe I shouldn't admit: paying to ship rocks with no real value (we're talking beach rocks, river rocks--nothing with any monetary value at all). The smooth rocks in the foreground are a set stamped with letters of the alphabet; someone stamped these for me and sent them to me years ago. In front of those are some old cow teeth from a skull someone gave me--very nasty and funky and falling apart, not one of the ones you buy but one you find lying somewhere in a field.

And this is my current favorite, since I just washed them all and polished them and put them up in the brand-new windows. All of these were in one window before; now they're spaced out over all three. So, obviously, I need more, right? I use only clear ones, not colored. Glass, although a couple of these are actually plastic and do sparkle amazingly brilliantly. Some are old, some were new, some were gifts. So if you've got some old prisms lying around, I'd love to have them~~

See? I do collect stuff~~I am, in fact, way easier to please than most people I know: a cool rock left on the front porch, a tag from an ancient sweater~~