The Contents of My Apartment

I’m sort of a minimalist. Not so that I can claim that title, I just choose to own fewer objects because I find that owning objects beyond what we need makes us identify with them. Most objects for sale are also created by those that just don’t care where the raw material comes from and don’t care where that object ends up at the end of its life. Though it’s beautiful to see that there is a huge trend towards building sustainable objects.

Buying used is one way to combat the cycle of digging up raw material to build shit that doesn’t last but a minute just to have to dig a hole to dump it into later.

Owning less is another way. Sure, everyone wants to “entertain” so they have a massive dinner table with 17 chairs, way too many plates, enough seating to host an army and just the right number of bedrooms to escape each other’s presence.

So, back to my crap. My bathroom is simple, shower curtain, old towel on the floor and my electric hair trimmer. I got a small stash of TP and dental floss (vegan) and tooth brushes and tooth pastes (also vegan).

My kitchen has 2 cast iron pans, 1 large pot, 2 metal camping cups (I’m single but I like to ‘entertain’), 2 forks, 1 spork, 2 butter knives, 1 cutting knife, 1 can opener, electric hand blender, manual coffee grinder and 2 metal camping plates. Oh, and a cutting board. Oh, shit, and a bottle opener because I’m a wino. Because I don’t eat animal products I almost never (and I mean maybe once every 2 months) use soap to clean dishes.

My living room/bed room (okay fine, it’s a studio) has 2 small chairs, a coffee table and the foam out of my Ikea mattress. Because Portland is cold and I don’t use the heater much, the warmth of my body transmits to the ground through the mattress and causes water to condense against the bottom of the mattress. This, after some time, causes mold which isn’t very sexy. One option is to put the mattress on its side every day to air it out. The other is to take the mattress out of the mattress cover, flip the wavy part to the ground and voila, instant ventilation under the mattress.