In Which I Live the Dream.

At the Bins, a.k.a. the Goodwill Outlet, Bee and I sift through the detritus of civilization. We are not like archaeologists, who listen carefully to every found object to hear the history it has to tell. There are many tales here, enough to drive you mad if you stop to listen. No, we are hasty, opinionated, and ruthless; it is the Way of the Bins.

The First Rule of the Bins is: Look before you grab. Some things are sharp -- broken glass edges the dish bins -- and some things are sticky, we don't want to know with what -- and some things are decaying, like that blanket with the synthetic fill. Oh, and avoid the underwear at all costs. Don't stare too long at the yellow sheen on that collar. Try really, really hard to keep from touching your face. Your nose doesn't itch; you're just imagining it.

The bins of household items may have had some semblance of order when they were wheeled out, but now they are a crazy stew of castoffs: dishes, belts, computer monitors, parts of toys, luggage and bric-a-brac. I bump a stuffed chipmunk from its prone position; it turns up a face that is a chewed, featureless mass, the stuff of nightmares. I shudder, then pick it up to scare Bee with. There's a lovely cast-iron skillet, but it's too heavy for my skinny wrist. I find a book on raising hedgehogs that I carry around for a while before coming to my senses: in the unlikely event that I find myself caring for a young hedgehog, the internet will be more than happy to help.

The household items are like a freak show, a bizarre museum of the things people pay for. I would like to believe that each of these things has been loved in its day, that each one had significance to some human at some point. But that seems hopelessly idealistic, even to me. No, this is the overflow of a consumer culture gone berserk, rolled off the assembly lines of less prosperous nations, each in the company of thousands of identical twins. Many of these items were purchased by people who didn't need them, and owned by people who didn't love them, simply because the American dream means Having Stuff, lots and lots of it, and being able to buy it whenever you feel like it.

Don't get me wrong. Bee and I are Americans, and we are here because we like Stuff too. We are both bargain-hunters, and share an unspoken understanding that there is a kind of virtue in getting cool stuff for cheap. Most of the cool stuff, we know, can be found in the clothing bins. But the work is harder here; the clothes are piled high today, and it's hard to do a thorough survey. I abandon my philosophizing and dedicate the full force of my brain to processing the bewildering morass of clothing in front of me. We get about halfway through before we give up, feet weary, backs complaining. Bee's prize find is a baby-sized green sweater, hand-knit; mine, a corduroy skirt that will easily find a good home even if it doesn't fit me. The trying-on will, of course, take place after everything has had a good washing. We pay for our gleanings by the pound and go in search of food.

* * *

Today's the last of fourteen B days. I have climbed Powell Butte, eaten blueberry breakfast bars, and watched The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (To whomever it was that told me I would really enjoy that movie: Alas, you were terribly mistaken). I am still reading Blue Highways, and though I'm enjoying it quite a bit, at this rate I'll be reading it for many, many weeks to come. But the B I've been working on the most lately, the one that has really interfered with the blogging, is Bedtime.

For the past several days, I've been setting my alarm for bedtime instead of for getting-up-time. It's a strange experiment, and I am lucky to have the flexibility in my work hours necessary to conduct it. My primary goal is to establish a consistent sleep schedule for the first time since I entered college, if not before. I'm also interested in finding out how many hours of sleep my body really wants per night. The thing is, I fall asleep pretty quickly once I'm in bed; my problem lies in convincing myself to get there. So the alarm clock signals it's time to get ready for sleep, and on a weeknight, I am not allowed to argue with it. Yes, the snooze alarm is fair game, but I can only run upstairs to hit it so many times. Apparently my sense of the absurd is more acute at 10 p.m. than at 7 a.m.

(And for those of you who protest that the post time doesn't agree with the above statements: Come on, it's the weekend!)

One B song for you: strange, but nice.
Back in Judy's Shack - Burning Cold