if I'm not back in 48 hours, send bears. with flamethrowers.
I am spending today (and, at this rate, most of tomorrow) cleaning and organizing my study.
This is an undertaking of epic proportions.
The primary horror will be going through the entire filing cabinet, tossing (or recycling or shredding as applicable) all the stuff that I should not be keeping, including, oh, I don't know, paycheck stubs from 1990? grade reports from 1992? gas bills from 1996? Seriously, I don't even want to think about what I might find in there - but of course not thinking about it is how I have ended up with a giant filing cabinet so stuffed full of crap that I can no longer make room for the things I actually do need to be keeping.
The filing cabinet, unfortunately, is not the only horror. The bookcase, which has become the temporary repository for all kinds of things that should be in the filing cabinet, or should be sorted into magazine holders, or should be recycled, or should have been recycled a couple of years ago... that, too, needs a thorough going-over.
And then there are minor projects, like the top of my desk (and believe me when I say that only the prospect of the filing cabinet and the bookcase can render the desk a minor project) and the closet shelf, and don't forget that I'm an academic and thus generate truly staggering amounts of paper as a sort of defensive force-field against unspecified forces of darkness. Plus I'm now a homeowner who's taking up gardening, which means that I have begun receiving every catalogue on earth as junk mail - catalogues which continue to appear for months after I cancel them. I swear, if this town just had curbside recycling of office and glossy paper, this room would look so different.
I am actually making progress on a couple of the other minor projects, as a sort of reassuring lead-in to the pending attack on the filing cabinet. What's really dispiriting at the moment is the inevitable mid-cleaning chaos. I mean, I know that this always happens; when I let things go this long, things always have to get much, much messier before they can get tidy again. I've had crap stuffed into every shelf and drawer and box and nook and cranny in this room; hauling it all out to sort through it... well, it looks like some sort of giant paper-eating monster dragged its prey in here, ate said prey exceptionally messily, and then exploded because it had eaten too much.
Okay, enough venting. I'm going to go do battle on the next front.
This is an undertaking of epic proportions.
The primary horror will be going through the entire filing cabinet, tossing (or recycling or shredding as applicable) all the stuff that I should not be keeping, including, oh, I don't know, paycheck stubs from 1990? grade reports from 1992? gas bills from 1996? Seriously, I don't even want to think about what I might find in there - but of course not thinking about it is how I have ended up with a giant filing cabinet so stuffed full of crap that I can no longer make room for the things I actually do need to be keeping.
The filing cabinet, unfortunately, is not the only horror. The bookcase, which has become the temporary repository for all kinds of things that should be in the filing cabinet, or should be sorted into magazine holders, or should be recycled, or should have been recycled a couple of years ago... that, too, needs a thorough going-over.
And then there are minor projects, like the top of my desk (and believe me when I say that only the prospect of the filing cabinet and the bookcase can render the desk a minor project) and the closet shelf, and don't forget that I'm an academic and thus generate truly staggering amounts of paper as a sort of defensive force-field against unspecified forces of darkness. Plus I'm now a homeowner who's taking up gardening, which means that I have begun receiving every catalogue on earth as junk mail - catalogues which continue to appear for months after I cancel them. I swear, if this town just had curbside recycling of office and glossy paper, this room would look so different.
I am actually making progress on a couple of the other minor projects, as a sort of reassuring lead-in to the pending attack on the filing cabinet. What's really dispiriting at the moment is the inevitable mid-cleaning chaos. I mean, I know that this always happens; when I let things go this long, things always have to get much, much messier before they can get tidy again. I've had crap stuffed into every shelf and drawer and box and nook and cranny in this room; hauling it all out to sort through it... well, it looks like some sort of giant paper-eating monster dragged its prey in here, ate said prey exceptionally messily, and then exploded because it had eaten too much.
Okay, enough venting. I'm going to go do battle on the next front.