The Travels of Former Possessions, & Ideas for a Map of Their Journeys
I looooove selling my belongings. I have met so many interesting people. I find it very enjoyable to think about all my possessions travelling off in different directions, beginning new lives with strangers.
I sold a t-shirt to a friendly girl who lives in Northeast Philly. The t-shirt had an iron-on computer transfer that I had designed, back in college, so it's one-of-a-kind. When she paid me for it at my hall sale, I told her about where it came from. She was excited to think that she would be the only person with that t-shirt in the whole world. I thought it would be upsetting to have my art and creations out in the blue yonder, away from where I could watch over them and keep them safe. Instead it's fun to think about where she might be wearing it, and how it might affect her in some subtle way.
I sold a silver vinyl corset at a tremendous discount to a very sweet, shy, quiet girl with a voice like Betty Boop. She might have been transgender or transexual, and I got a real rush of happiness thinking about how happy she was to get such a deal and such a beautiful garment. I have so much admiration for people who have the strength and determination to pursue their dreams of becoming the people they've always been on the inside, despite the stigmas and even dangers in our society of undergoing such a transformation. I'm happy that the corset found a new home with someone who needs it. I don't mean physically requiring a vinyl corset, I mean needing positive emotions, especially happiness.
I sold a set of drill bits to a girl who's pursuing her dreams to become an artist. It was actually my first sale on Craig's List, and what a great way to get started. She and I talked for twenty minutes, all about her studio and the artist that she worked for, and her evening job at a restaurant downtown. I had used that set of drill bits once in the three years of owning it (and I got it for free, anyway), but now they could get put to work and actually fulfill their purpose, and with an artist, no less.
It would be wonderful to be able to mark each and every item with some kind of invisible tracker, and then create a map and watch how they travel and where they land over time. It would be a beautiful, random, irregular and asymmetrical star as all the lines radiated out from the nucleus of my apartment, each zig-zagging or looping away with its own purpose. Some might travel only two or three blocks, others might eventually end up in other countries after hops and skips by their new owners, moving further and further away.
As long as I'm imagining, I would also make each point that represented an item glow brighter or softer in relation to how much the item was being used and/or loved. There's no way to predict which points would snuff out and which would burn hotly on the map, and that would be the beauty of the system - to discover how human preference and each person's quirks played out in the motion and brightness of each point on the map.
I sold a t-shirt to a friendly girl who lives in Northeast Philly. The t-shirt had an iron-on computer transfer that I had designed, back in college, so it's one-of-a-kind. When she paid me for it at my hall sale, I told her about where it came from. She was excited to think that she would be the only person with that t-shirt in the whole world. I thought it would be upsetting to have my art and creations out in the blue yonder, away from where I could watch over them and keep them safe. Instead it's fun to think about where she might be wearing it, and how it might affect her in some subtle way.
I sold a silver vinyl corset at a tremendous discount to a very sweet, shy, quiet girl with a voice like Betty Boop. She might have been transgender or transexual, and I got a real rush of happiness thinking about how happy she was to get such a deal and such a beautiful garment. I have so much admiration for people who have the strength and determination to pursue their dreams of becoming the people they've always been on the inside, despite the stigmas and even dangers in our society of undergoing such a transformation. I'm happy that the corset found a new home with someone who needs it. I don't mean physically requiring a vinyl corset, I mean needing positive emotions, especially happiness.
I sold a set of drill bits to a girl who's pursuing her dreams to become an artist. It was actually my first sale on Craig's List, and what a great way to get started. She and I talked for twenty minutes, all about her studio and the artist that she worked for, and her evening job at a restaurant downtown. I had used that set of drill bits once in the three years of owning it (and I got it for free, anyway), but now they could get put to work and actually fulfill their purpose, and with an artist, no less.
It would be wonderful to be able to mark each and every item with some kind of invisible tracker, and then create a map and watch how they travel and where they land over time. It would be a beautiful, random, irregular and asymmetrical star as all the lines radiated out from the nucleus of my apartment, each zig-zagging or looping away with its own purpose. Some might travel only two or three blocks, others might eventually end up in other countries after hops and skips by their new owners, moving further and further away.
As long as I'm imagining, I would also make each point that represented an item glow brighter or softer in relation to how much the item was being used and/or loved. There's no way to predict which points would snuff out and which would burn hotly on the map, and that would be the beauty of the system - to discover how human preference and each person's quirks played out in the motion and brightness of each point on the map.