When I think about the word "clutter," I think that I like the sound of the word, and that I like "decluttering" as well. But then I remember that the Clutter family was the Midwestern clan whose murder formed the premise of Capote's book In Cold Blood. And then talk of joyous decluttering seems in bad taste.

In any event, I've been culling and sorting in preparation for the move. Thank goodness that Frances has opened her garage to long-term storage for Leonard and me; I'd feel wrong lugging my high school journalism clippings to whatever tiny garret we end up renting.

It'll be great to use the sewing machine that Leonard, Frances, John, Susie, and Rachel got me; thank you. Once I mend that pile of clothes in my closet, Leonard and I will be able to pick more effectively which clothes to take east.

On the train back from Bakersfield, as I read the D.H. Lawrence that Frances and Rachel got me (thank you!) and thought about all the things I have to do, I fell into conversation with the fellow next to me, a philosophy professor on his way to interview for a new job at the New York City convention of the American Philosophical Association. He told me about the weird letter from a prospective student who figured that he knew philosophy because he'd read Nietzsche and Rand. He told me of the university-wide essay contest that kept a requirement that the submitted essays had to have been written for a class so the judges wouldn't have to read thirty triumphalist Objectivist rants. And he told me about the student who plagiarized an entire paper from one of Kant's lesser-known works in a class taught by a Kant scholar. And he told me, once I'd mentioned the NYC intimidation factor:

"New York City is so big that it seems like it might kill you. But just remember that it has failed to kill many, many people stupider than you."

The fear of the difficult is just another decadence that I should dismiss, just another piece of clutter to toss.