kangaroos and my bedroom floor

this weekend, i:
*tried to help with the kids drama team at church
*started financial peace university
*bought sigur ros tickets a few hours before financial peace university started
*brought natalie's longboard to her house but failed to take it out of the car and return it to her
*watched an unusual number of movies with robert downey jr. in them
*finally got to hang out with four-year-olds again
*celebrated fleadom
*got rid of some stuff i don't need
*mailed an actual letter
*went to the zoo
*consequently found out that tapirs are awesome, bats are still creepy, and this is maybe one of my favourite things ever:


i apologise for the stunningly obvious oldies soundtrack. but seriously? i didn't even know that i loved kangaroos, until i was walking past their outdoor area on saturday, and a couple of them started hopping around, and i just about jumped out of my skin (in an unfortunate kangaroo imitation of my own) with delight. do you remember the dufflepuds, from the chronicles of narnia? that's what they reminded me of. (i know it's probably inappropriate for something that's real to remind me of something that's not real - but there it is.) i just think it is absolutely wonderful that God created something that is shaped like a kangaroo and gets around by hopping. i mean, was that really necessary? or is it just amusing?

anyway. i went back to the kangaroos later, and stood around for five-to-ten minutes, hoping to see them hop again. but i think it was too hot. too hot for hopping, despite what i was hoping. it's okay, kangaroos: i still love you.

(i thought about throwing something over the fence into their area - like a small child - to see if they would hop over to check it out. but i think that's discouraged.)

um... i feel like i should talk about something that's not kangaroos. but what else is there?

oh, my house. i was thinking this weekend about how much i like my house. and i think i like my house exponentially more as i get rid of the stuff inside it. i mean like, not my chairs or my lamps or my cheeseburger kitty portrait, but like the unnecessary stuff from my past. it feels really good to make decisions about who i'm not anymore... to say, no, i don't need that. that isn't who i am. i am not a person who uses faux-1960's cartoonish flowers in her decorating schemes anymore. i do not need a t-shirt from the community college that i attended in high school, because that is not what defines me. (also, do i really want to chronicle my history through t-shirts? i don't think so.)

i had already sorted through a lot of stuff and boxed it up for an arc run later this month, but now i'm mentally going through the big pile of probably-keep on my bedroom floor, and thinking, no, i don't think i do need that... why would i think i would want to keep that? why does that have value to me?

i'll be getting rid of a lot of picture frames - i'll be honest. i'm also thinking of a lamp that i think i inherited from the last house, and a few pieces of union jack memorabilia, and some toys that would probably be better used by an actual child. (although you're not getting my mylittleponies, little bitches.) i could pretend to be sentimental, but the fact is i'm just not. i guess i could qualify that by saying that i'm sentimental about people. like, it's unlikely that i'll junk any of the photos that currently inhabit the ill-fated picture frames. it's extremely difficult for me to get rid of anything with a friend's handwriting on it, or anything that they made. if i have good memories attached to a ticket stub, you can be sure i'll keep it for as long as the memory lasts (or stays good). but i'm not going to keep a movie ticket if i can't remember who went with me to the movie. i'm not going to keep a memento of something just because it happened. (okay, maybe if i went to the movie by myself but the movie changed my life, i might hang onto it. but that is somewhat rare.) i mean, this bowl of oatmeal that i'm eating is really good, but i'm not planning to go home and glue the spoon into a scrapbook.

i feel like this is a fair decision.