terrible Hawaiian lager

had redhook for beer friday again this week. my choices are redhook, some ipa and blue moon. its always free so there is no bitching allowed but redhook is the only one I'd buy on my own. which means: it gets enjoyed every time.

gwen stefani: bubble pop electric: hahahahaha, oh god. this song is so good and terrible and wonderful and awful. pop rock, bad sexual innuendo, accurate description of teenage romance and strange possibly racist backup singers. I need more of this.

I probably need to say goodbye to my comfy chair soon. I haven't sat in it for several months now as its been in storage. I was fine with packing it up because I'd see it again. But letting it go forever? Oddly nostalgic and somewhat crippling fear. Its a wonderful chair and I have the the original documentation from 25 years ago when my grandpa bought it, but I think a few pictures and a fond farewell will do it proud.

I have now personified my chair. I didn't have a meaningful relationship with my grandpa. I love him, but I don't know him. He died when I was 10. He got me interested in coin collecting but I flipped out the one time I was supposed to crash at his house with him and my grandma and had to go home. I suppose I'm holding onto the chair as a way to try and get to know him. Have a meaningful relationship with him in some way.

Its quite clearly impossible, the man is dead. And even if he is an angel or something he's not gonna sit down with me and have a conversation about his army days. I can imagine whatever I'd like, but its not going to happen. When I look at my stuff, my furniture, things that I bought, I don't much care. I take care of it and I enjoy it and when its time to move on, I move on with no problems. But when its a gift or a hand-me-down I find it almost impossible to let the object go. Its all I have of that person right now and I don't want to let it go.

This is part of why I dislike receiving gifts. I know I have a finite capacity to hold on to things, to hold on to people and I quite like the things and people in me life right now. I don't care if there's an upgrade available. I have a different rating scale of things and what I have right now is best in the way I care about.

This isn't unique, really. Studies have been done that show if you have to price an object you price it much higher if its in your hands then if its on a shelf. I assume the above is an offshoot of this behavior. This behavior has been exploited for years by marketers and salesmen to, 'have a taste! see if you like it!' And because it is an exploited behavior I view it as weak and something to be avoided.

I can apply this security patch to things going forward so new items and new things don't have the same hold on me. But stuff that got through when the barn doors were open? Locked in. But they won't last forever and I need to get rid of them sometime. I'll probably want a La-z-boy again in the future, but for now I'll be happy with a desk chair and a pug. It'll be beautiful, we'll all see.