Why We Can't Have Nice Things

It occurs to me that last week marked my two year anniversary of moving to Houston, a task I embarked on with only a compact car stuffed full of possessions, a good (but cramped) friend to keep me company, a wing and a prayer.

Since then, I've lived at three addresses, had four phone numbers, and accumulated furniture and necessities from various places: IKEA, Target, yard sales, side-of-road, hand-me-downs, Fiesta, etc. I sort of live like an adult now, but I never got over the transient lifestyle, and an aversion to collecting "things" that will only take up space the next time I have to move.

Accordingly, this post is dedicated entirely to stuff I don't have, and how I cope.

1. DVD/VCR player.

I do, reluctantly, have a television, purchased from Best Buy when Andrea and I realized that we needed the ability to rent movies. She took the VCR, I got the TV. Right now I'm borrowing Jeff's X-Box, which works for DVDs until, I suppose, we break up, or he suddenly decides that he needs to be able to play Ninja Gaiden at home again.

2. Wine Glasses.

I don't know what happened. I used to have wine glasses (cheap ones from the Blue Bird thrift store). I'm assuming they broke, possibly due to wine consumption or dirty dish mountains.

3. Measuring glass.

So a cup of liquid is about, like, yay much. This combined with a lack of 4. baking pans; 5. mixing bowl; 6. sugar (scratch that, bought some this week); and 7. flour... means that I don't make a whole lot of cookies. I do, however, have a truly fabulous electric mixer that came as a bonus to my vacuum cleaner (x-mas pressie). Moving on...

8. A working printer

I say "working" because ideally a printer's job is to print things, and I have two that do not.

When it comes down to it, the list of things-I-do-have-and-don't-need, or things-I-have-but-they're-total-crap (like the $5 yard sale microwave that always smells like pork) outnumbers anything I lack. One day, I imagine, I'll have a wedding and people will come and bring fond wishes and fancy knives, and it will be a chance to start over with real furniture and plates and silverware that match.

Until then, I'm a mismatch, owning nothing that can't be shoved in a Neon, thrown out by the side of the road, or shipped across the country book-rate.