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Ah yes, a cleaning update!
Mar. 2nd, 2009 03:53 pmI have emptied four boxes in the last 24 hours -- three cardboard moving boxes and one large plastic crate. The crate held some books and lots of DVDs; the boxes held everything from books to CDs to CD-ROM drives that are too old to be burners.
I have all but one of the shelves into my bookshelves. This allowed me to put all of the DVDs and all of the loose CDs in my bedroom onto shelves. Please note that there isn't any order to these objects yet: they're simply not on the floor, on my bed or strewn across my desk.
I own a lot of music. I know that I already have two and a half racks full of CDs, but they're on the other side of the apartment. They hide behind a tall stack of Sterilite containers that hold two-thirds of my roommate's DVD collection. It's like having a pillar in front of that corner, obscuring some of my most valuable possessions.
They had cement versions of such pillars in the Engineering Building at my university. You'd open a door and find a huge, load-bearing pylon keeping the door from opening all the way. That building was poorly designed and ugly, with red chalkboards in rooms painted yellow and other amazing eyesores. Of course that's where I took an aesthetics class.
Now I can stare at another several dozen CDs on a shelf as a drift off to sleep or if I turn around from my keyboard. The discs taunt me. "We're in no particular order, bro! Some of us are data, some of us are DVDs, some of us you bought for three bucks at CEX downtown and will never play again! Sort us! Sorrrrrrt ussssss! Get OCD on our jewel cases!"
Oh, I will... just not yet. Today and tomorrow I am sorting computer hardware. I just rolled my mobile rack of computer drawers out of the hall closet and put it back in this room. This will help me sort objects that are already on my baker's rack and get all of the computer parts into a logical and reachable setup. I don't want to put a large box that holds nothing but desktop computer power supply units on a shelf above my head.
This is a weird kind of progress. I am finding space for the first time in years, and it can intimidate me. My mind wants to clutter it all again, desires the comfort of chaos. My genealogy is tied to a messy people, an entropic people that said "screw it, there isn't enough storage space in the west of England -- let's go farther west!" Fighting that urge is carving a more civilized person into myself.
Why do all of this? Part of it is keeping myself busy, giving myself a structure and goals for each day. Another part of me knows I won't do this once I'm working again so I'd better do it now. A third part of me is fascinated by the quantification and classification of stuff. A fourth part of me wants to free up unsorted backups of data, toss old drives and wind up with one set of good drives for computers I can rebuild and donate and a pair of backups.
All of me wants a shower right now, and who am I to deny myself hearty ablutions?
-benefits of being unemployed on a snowy day, Ps/d
I have all but one of the shelves into my bookshelves. This allowed me to put all of the DVDs and all of the loose CDs in my bedroom onto shelves. Please note that there isn't any order to these objects yet: they're simply not on the floor, on my bed or strewn across my desk.
I own a lot of music. I know that I already have two and a half racks full of CDs, but they're on the other side of the apartment. They hide behind a tall stack of Sterilite containers that hold two-thirds of my roommate's DVD collection. It's like having a pillar in front of that corner, obscuring some of my most valuable possessions.
They had cement versions of such pillars in the Engineering Building at my university. You'd open a door and find a huge, load-bearing pylon keeping the door from opening all the way. That building was poorly designed and ugly, with red chalkboards in rooms painted yellow and other amazing eyesores. Of course that's where I took an aesthetics class.
Now I can stare at another several dozen CDs on a shelf as a drift off to sleep or if I turn around from my keyboard. The discs taunt me. "We're in no particular order, bro! Some of us are data, some of us are DVDs, some of us you bought for three bucks at CEX downtown and will never play again! Sort us! Sorrrrrrt ussssss! Get OCD on our jewel cases!"
Oh, I will... just not yet. Today and tomorrow I am sorting computer hardware. I just rolled my mobile rack of computer drawers out of the hall closet and put it back in this room. This will help me sort objects that are already on my baker's rack and get all of the computer parts into a logical and reachable setup. I don't want to put a large box that holds nothing but desktop computer power supply units on a shelf above my head.
This is a weird kind of progress. I am finding space for the first time in years, and it can intimidate me. My mind wants to clutter it all again, desires the comfort of chaos. My genealogy is tied to a messy people, an entropic people that said "screw it, there isn't enough storage space in the west of England -- let's go farther west!" Fighting that urge is carving a more civilized person into myself.
Why do all of this? Part of it is keeping myself busy, giving myself a structure and goals for each day. Another part of me knows I won't do this once I'm working again so I'd better do it now. A third part of me is fascinated by the quantification and classification of stuff. A fourth part of me wants to free up unsorted backups of data, toss old drives and wind up with one set of good drives for computers I can rebuild and donate and a pair of backups.
All of me wants a shower right now, and who am I to deny myself hearty ablutions?
-benefits of being unemployed on a snowy day, Ps/d
