As many of my friends know, I am somewhat minimalist when it comes to “stuff”. I like some toys and gadgets (TiVo, iPod, cool phone, etc) but I don’t want anything that I have to fix, dust, or store in boxes. To that end, I found a book at the library called “Give It Up!” about a woman in New York who decided to spend a year giving up different things for a month each to see what impact it had on her life.

I have listed the categories and how I feel about each:

January, Alcohol: Would not be a big deal (but the author was a bit of a drinker, if you catch my drift); I only drink maybe once every week and a half anyway and then only have a few.

February, Shopping: Again, not a huge deal for me because my desire to not have “stuff” causes me to not buy “stuff” much unless it is needed or consumable.

March, Elevators: I live in Phoenix.

April, Newspapers: I don’t read them and I don’t watch the news. If something BIG happens, I’m sure a friend will let me know as they are heading east in their SUV to escape the explosion at the west side Palo Verde nuclear power plant.

May, Cell phones: WHY should I give this up again?

June, Dining out: Okay, now I am screwed. I eat out ALL OF THE TIME. I used to cook a lot when I lived in Moon Valley, but there are so many cool little food places downtown right by my house that I have admittedly gotten lazy about cooking. Let’s just move on to July…

July, Television: RATS! Foiled again. I certainly could watch less television (I have a TiVo Series 3 with TWO tuners so I can watch a recorded show and record two others at the same time!), and last week I actually did so. I turned off the TV Sunday night, put the remotes in a drawer where I had to make a POINT to go get them and did not turn on the TV until late Thursday night. And it seems as though I missed almost NOTHING, so I am going to try this again this week and see how that goes. I am so impressed with friends who don’t have cable SL, JB, EL, ML, you know who you are!), but I am not ready to do that yet!

August, Taxis: See entry “March, Elevators”.

September, Coffee: I only drink a cup a day in the morning and that one is decaf. The creamer I put in (aka liquid sugar) probably doesn’t help though.

October, Cursing: Fuck that shit. Actually, I do try not to curse, especially around people who I feel may be uncomfortable with it. Get off my ass! I’m fucking working on it!

November, Chocolate: Not a big chocolate eater anyway. Especially after grabbing a square of Ghiradelli BAKING chocolate from my friend Mary’s pantry and popping in my mouth. It actually takes a good ten seconds of chewing to realize that a mistake has been made.

December, Multitasking: Hard to imagine stopping that as I am listening to NPR, writing this and running some stuff for work. Tell you what, I’ll stop texting while driving, since that is illegal now anyway…