I have a knick-knack problem
My holiday week has been characterized by small bursts of cleaning surrounded by huge pockets of lazing about. I've finally disposed of the old PC after ripping out the drive, which is destined for physical destruction. I vowed to be ruthless in cleaning out my college texts, which occupy 4 shelves in my living room. I...failed. I had no problem getting rid of literary theory, struggled over Norton readers (I love essays and short fiction) and won, then collapsed completely over poetry and drama. Not one play or book of poetry got tossed. I still have my Riverside Chaucer AND my Donaldson anthology of Chaucer's works. Because everyone needs two Chaucers. Why the heck am I keeping Milton? I HATE MILTON. But travelling from one end of the shelf to the next, I have a complete range of British poetry from Middle English through the early 20th century (Yeats), and somehow my identity is wrapped up in that. Don't ask me when I last picked up any of these books to read. That is irrelevant.
Beneath the card table that used to hold the PC (victory is mine!), there were two boxes that hadn't been unpacked since I moved into this apartment *mumble* years ago. (I mumble because I actually don't remember the year, not because it embarrasses me. More than 10, less than 20...though it's probable that I won't recognize when it slips into twenty. While the homeowners among us shudder delicately at the thought of all that wasted rent, I will return to my decluttering monologue.) One box was labelled "desk," the other "knick knacks." I breezed through the desk box, from which I recovered graph paper I will probably never use and a pencil sharpener I have no place for. I opened knick knacks and it was like opening a time capsule. There was a marble kaleidoscope (origins unknown) and the mugs I collected as souvenirs of the shows I had seen in London during my Junior summer and half a dozen pewter-and-crystal figurines of dragons and wizards and unicorns. It was like dropping through a hole in space/time and being 13 again. I had no idea what to do with these treasures, so I still have a box under the card table that used to hold the PC. It's labelled...desk. (The knick-knack box had been a little less pristine.)
Beneath the card table that used to hold the PC (victory is mine!), there were two boxes that hadn't been unpacked since I moved into this apartment *mumble* years ago. (I mumble because I actually don't remember the year, not because it embarrasses me. More than 10, less than 20...though it's probable that I won't recognize when it slips into twenty. While the homeowners among us shudder delicately at the thought of all that wasted rent, I will return to my decluttering monologue.) One box was labelled "desk," the other "knick knacks." I breezed through the desk box, from which I recovered graph paper I will probably never use and a pencil sharpener I have no place for. I opened knick knacks and it was like opening a time capsule. There was a marble kaleidoscope (origins unknown) and the mugs I collected as souvenirs of the shows I had seen in London during my Junior summer and half a dozen pewter-and-crystal figurines of dragons and wizards and unicorns. It was like dropping through a hole in space/time and being 13 again. I had no idea what to do with these treasures, so I still have a box under the card table that used to hold the PC. It's labelled...desk. (The knick-knack box had been a little less pristine.)