Tag: stuff

What to do with your stuff when you’re dead

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I may have mentioned this first part before. My wife periodically asks me, “What do you want to happen to your stuff when you’re dead?” She wasn’t quite that coarse. But to mind’s ear, it SOUNDED that way.

Recently, my daughter has been also uttered the refrain. I don’t know, but I’m still using them, thank you.

In my wife’s case, it’s a function of my mother-in-law dealing with my late father-in-law’s stuff, so I get it. But the question still makes me irritable.

There may be some of my music and books – surely the largest physical representation of my “stuff” – that they may actually want to keep! Surely, my daughter should want the book Soulsville, USA, even if she doesn’t KNOW she wants it. Likewise my Motown, Stax, Beatles-adjacent, and other albums.

We’re giving ’em away!

That said, there are some books I could part with. Top Pop Albums for 1996, 2001, and 2009 I’m giving up if anyone wants them. But I’m holding on to the 2005 and 2016 versions, the former renamed The Billboard Albums. Why keep the 2005 version but not 2009? Because 2009 dropped the tracks on the albums, re-instated in the 2016 version. And I keep 2005 because it weighs less than the 2016 version and meets most of my needs.

I just got Top Pop Country Singles 1944-2017. So the version ending with 2012 I’d gladly give up.

I’ve somehow got two copies of Marvel Masterworks, Daredevil Volume 5, covering DD issues 42-53. They’re mostly by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, but also Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith.

And I have a case of “And don’t call me a racist!” The book was compiled by Ella Mazel.

Musical CD duplicates:
25 – Adele
Secret Identity – the Andrew Allen Trio
Sky Signal – Audible
The Long Black Veil – The Chieftains
Open Ground – Kyle Fischer
Cowgirl’s Prayer – Emmylou Harris
Metal Cares – Picastro
Long Knives Down – Rainer Maria

Optimally, anyone who wanted these locally could pick up one or more of these, and multiples of the Mazel book. Or I could drop them off. Beyond that, I’ll ship the rest, in the US only because international postage and regulations are pains. Email me at rogerogreen (at) gmail (dot) com.

More important to me than stuff

I’m more interested in what becomes of my blog when I go. My blog is paid for through March 2027. Still, I’d like to find someone to dump the spam emails, accept the real comments, and update the plugins.

Fortunately, I know most of the blog will live on via the Wayback Machine. At this writing, it was last captured just after my last birthday, on March 8, 2021.

What I discovered, though, is that I used to insert these Continue Reading breaks, the content below which I can’t retrieve. So I have been systematically been getting rid of the MORE tabs.

Also, the first five years of this blog were on Blogger. When I moved it, some of the punctuation was wonky. I’d now get a sentence such as That’s why there’s no such thing as an “aspiring writer.” I know what it means, but it’s ugly. I’m going through those posts as well.

As for Facebook and Twitter, I suppose I should figure something about those too. But they’re just not that important to me.

STUFF post

One sister is a recovering shopaholic – and annoying, in that way recovering addicts tend to be.


I have, over the past few years, been much less likely to get things than I used to be. Oh sure, I might buy a few DVDs or CDs per year, but it’s nothing like my heyday a couple of decades ago. This has been a function of several factors:

1. Stuff owns you. When you have stuff, you have to keep track of stuff, you have to dust stuff. The old cliche about the boat owner is true; the two happiest days of his/her life are the day getting the boat and the day selling it.

I used to live in apartments, which meant moving every few years. Schlepping the long white boxes of my comic books – which I’ve since sold – and the heavy boxes containing LPs – which I have not – got very old.

There was this older couple I once knew, and they had a rule: for every item that came into the house, an item of equal size had to go out. I admire their discipline because I’m pretty sure I could not do that.

There was this young woman on JEOPARDY! a few years ago who stunned Trebek when she talked about the fire at her dwelling and how liberating it was. I’m certainly in that mindset, but I sure understood the sentiment.

2. My family obviously has issues with stuff. When he died, my father had a couple of warehouses full of stuff he was (presumably) going to sell, but it was in such disarray, my family struggled for a couple of years to thin it out. My mother used to collect bells, but one day just decided that they were taking over the living room and dumped all but a handful. One sister is a recovering shopaholic – and annoying, in that way recovering addicts tend to be.

3. If I can’t use the stuff, then I don’t want the stuff. I actually like reference books because I access them regularly. But that pile of books I keep meaning to read is starting to get on my nerves. Of course, I love music, but it is probably the case that I could not play all I own if I played it 10 hours a day, every day for a year; if I’m not listening to it, do I need it?

What is your relationship with stuff? How do you limit how much stuff you have? Are some of your stuff in storage?

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