More letters have been coming in from several different readers, and places.  (People have noticed my decline in creative energy… or so they say.)  This note… scribed by Margy from Sioux City, Iowa:

Dear Polly,
Your column has been a little on the weak side lately. Are you preoccupied with something? Are you not feeling well? I am not complaining. I am merely concerned.

Dear Margy (is it Margy….sounding sort of like bungee jump? Or Margy with a hard G…. Like Geek? Oh, I guess it doesn’t matter. I just want to pronounce it correctly here….) at any rate… Dear Margy Bungee Geek of Sioux City,

Thanks for your concern.  And…..To answer your questions:   Yes. and…. Yes.
I’ve been “moving” this past week Marg. “Preoccupied” is an understatement. However…. I have learned a big lesson throughout this process……and that is:

We all have a bunch of “stuff”…. now don’t we? Do you know when you realize it the most? When you move.

It goes something like this:

1. You decide it is time to move your stuff to a new place… where your stuff might be happier… along with the owners of the stuff.

2. You begin to assess your stuff. “Do I really need this?”   “I haven’t worn this sweater since I was 17 years old…. do I really need to keep it? I used to LOVE this thing…”   “Oh, look at this fuzzy dice set I won at my first fair. I can’t hardly throw this away.”

Yes. You have assessed. You smugly say… “Keep it all… pack it up!” And you do.

3. Four days later, you are still packing your stuff… and your decisions become less sentimental….and/or rational. “Okay… here is our brand new TV and DVD player. Do we really need to watch these things any more? No we do not. I VOW not bring them with us… vamoose!”   “Oh look. My daughter’s baby book….. oh to hell with it… nobody looks at this thing… she’s grown… pitch it.”

The madness continues to escalate.

4. Seven days into the process, you have managed to pack as few of your belongings as possible.  Now….it is time to move it.  This is hard work.  You begin to curse and swear like a sailor at your stuff.

5. Eventually… you arrive at the new house. Time to unpack. But what you find in those boxes are a whole bunch of poor decisions. Little bags of rusty paper clips.  Those fuzzy dice.  Mismatched knitting needles.  A Barry Gibb Poster.  Four egg timers.   And you realize that by the time you got around to hauling your important stuff…. well, you no longer held allegiances or alliances to any of those things. (You were dog-tired for crying out loud)  …..but what were you thinking when you threw away all the silverware?

6. You bemoan your poor decision-making skills.

7. You then finish unpacking all of those poor decisions. Done.

8. Trash day, and you ignominiously haul your empty boxes and wadded up paper to the curb.

9. At last.. time to relax. So you sit down in the bright orange bean bag chair… that was packed early in the process…. and prop your feet on the rugby ball you found at the park in 1984. As you sip your Diet Coke from the “Looney Tunes” glass you got with a fill-up from the Sunoco, in 1972… . . ….a complete sense of accomplishment washes over you. It just doesn’t get any better than this. (And thankfully, you kept your Sock Monkey Hat… which you now wear proudly….. to amplify the celebration).

Ahhhhhh…. Home At Last. Home Sweet Home. There’s No Place Like Home….. and you promise yourself… to stay at this new place…. .until the cows come home…. or you need a new place to hang your Sock Monkey Hat.