I pack the stuff as soon as I list it, so I only have to print the label for mailing. McPhee actually takes the stuff to the PO now, but with a PO only a block away it does make the process easier. I should probably think about taking some of my clothing stuff to a consignment shop if it does not sell, there is one near my parents, but I think you have to make an appointment to sell stuff and Saturday would be my only day for that.

You = awesome. But we knew that.

What she said.

I NEED coffee!!! You know it's bad if I'm drinking a cup of coffee and still feeling that craving of "oh gawd, more coffee STAT!"

words with friends just denied me shoop. haters.

I have a question about how to resolve something that's been dogging me for years.

My dear friend Melisa, who was a writer and an artist, died in 1994. (We lived together for 10 years and she would have probably been my wife if laws had allowed it.) I've been carrying around her papers ever since. A lot of writing, all stories that were good but never finished, and a lot of drawings, all very good, mostly to illustrate those stories, and some of my stories. I've culled the collection a couple times, and it's down to two (maybe three) plastic storage bins now. They are very heavy. I've moved 11 times since then and carried it all with me, and I'm tired of the burden, both literal and emotional. Thursday I pulled the bins out of the storage room to put down the new floor, and the thought of shoving them back in there again is finally more exhausting than the thought of doing something about them.

Finally to the question: what do I do with them? I cannot bear to throw them away; they're all that's left of her, and really, they are good, it would be a shame. I can throw away the doodles and half-finished drawings; she would have herself by now, but the finished stuff, I'd like to put on deviantArt. She would LOVED deviantArt. The writing, I don't even know. I doubt I'll ever finish her stories, as I once planned to do. Obviously I can't really publish them, but I could put them on deviantArt, but I'm sure there's a copyright, and I REALLY don't want to involve her family in anyway, especially in a legal way. (They didn't like me. I corrupted her, you see.)

Thoughts, ideas, anyone?

Scan them, and send the originals back to her family?

Or scan them and upload them to Deviantart or one of the websites for original fiction? Not sure what to do with the originals, but a portable hard drive is easier to carry around than three boxes of papers -- on the other hand, it's much more fragile format, and might go obsolete.

but with a PO only a block away it does make the process easier

Mine is down the street, and a pass it every day. Yet, my paid bills were still in my purse for five days before I managed to actually drop them off.

I do plan to scan the art, and once done, if they look good enough, I'll be able to throw away the originals. Or maybe I'll cull it all down to a few really good pieces that I can fit into a portfolio, which my heirs can throw away in 50 years.

It's the writing I really don't know what to do with. I don't know if I can or should put it on deviantArt, and I'm not sure I can take on the task of transcribing all of it.

Her family never indicated that they wanted any of them or even gave a shit that she was an artist. (Her mom did, but she died a couple months after her daughter. Her father and brother surely do not want to hear from me again, any more than I want to contact them. Besides, they came to our house and took everything they thought was hers a week after the funeral - which I was asked not to attend - so AFAIC they've got everything they wanted and they're not getting more.)

Maybe frame a few of your favorite pieces of art? And you could probably post the writing, as long as you made it clear it was a friend's who'd passed away. Otherwise, take your three favorite stories and keep those.

My first thought was "pyre", but if you really want to share the stuff, everyone else has better ideas than I. I tend to go Viking on things that I can't keep but respect too much to dump in the trash. A pyre sends things off to the gods.

And if you don't want to give it to god(s), there's always recycling, once you've taken what you want in physical form.

If you can afford to get the whole thing scanned (I have no idea what that would run, though), I'd totally do that and have it burnt to optical in a good hi res. And then you have all the time in the world to decide how to share them digitally, if you want.

I am so not feeling better, and I know everyone's going to be massively mad at me if I don't go into work tomorrow. But a week more isn't looking practical.