Monday, July 11, 2005

Spring Cleaning in July

I’ve had a TV sitting on my bedroom floor for three months, awaiting an entertainment center. This weekend I finally bought some new bedroom furniture. I went a little crazy. Once I got it in my actual bedroom I realized that I had very little room for said furniture. Seems measuring the space might have been a good idea before purchasing furniture. Hmph. Details are so boring.

The good news is that the furniture is in more than one piece, so I can be somewhat creative as to how I fit 8 feet of furniture in 4 feet of space. Running out of patience and ideas I invited my roommate into my room for her advice as to where I should put the furniture.

“You have way too much crap.”
“That has nothing to do with furniture.”
“It has to do with what’s ON the furniture.”
“But what I need is help on what to do with the furniture I bought.”
“You need a two bedroom apartment all to yourself. So you could have a bedroom and an office.”
“Okay, well that’s a great idea. BUT not so much helpful for the current situation.”
“You should get rid of those two desks and get one of those corner desk thingys, that would take up less space.”
“The TV has been sitting on my floor for three months. I don’t move so quickly on furniture purchasing. So how bout we try to work with the furniture I have now?”
“I think that bookcase will fit in that space.”
(Dawn measures the space, it is 20 inches. Dawn measures the bookcase, it is 22 inches.)
“I don’t think it will.”
“I really think it will.”
“Let’s pretend like it won’t. What should I do with this furniture?”
“You have way too much crap. What is all that?” (motions to piles of very important stuff)
“It’s my stuff.”
“You need to throw out your stuff.”
“I don’t know what my stuff has to do with the FURNITURE.”
“Because I can’t think clearly in a room with this much clutter.”
“Thanks so much for your help.”
“Can I borrow that movie that’s sitting on top of that pile of stuff?”

Soooo, in an effort to allow my roommate to think clearly I decided to start throwing away some of my crap. And the reason why I have so much crap is because I refuse to throw things away. I can find a reason to keep just about anything. And I can usually find some sort of sentimental reason to keep everything as well. Which makes these random cleanings fun. Cause I get to find all the stuff I deemed “Very Important and Worthy of Keeping Because Someday It Will Be Special To Find This And Remember the Moment Associated With It”. Of course, I can only remember about half the moments associated with any of the stuff. But still, the cleaning was special nonetheless.

Take for instance an e-mail correspondence I printed out between a friend and I. This is the entire transcript, word for word:

Friend: So…..are we going to leave at noon on Friday?

Me: Do you know how long it takes to get there?

Friend: I think about 67 hours.

Me: We should leave at 11:45 then.

Friend: I thought we were going to leave at noon!

Me: Oh, did you want to leave at noon? You hadn’t mentioned that before.

Friend: Well it depends. How long do you think it will take to get there?

Me: I can’t remember who I heard it from, but someone said like 67 hours.

Friend: Really? What time do you think we should leave then?

Me: I was thinking around noon, what do you think?

Friend: Okay. Let’s leave at noon. What time do you think we’ll get there by?

And that’s the end of the e-mail correspondence. And it’s e-mail, not Instant Messenger. Because we were both very good employees and saw nothing wrong with having that conversation over the course of 10 e-mails instead of just having a simple phone conversation. I have no idea where we were going or if we ever got there or why I felt like that was an e-mail I needed to save forever.

But when I was “cleaning” I put it back in my desk, cause “Someday It Will Be Special To Find This And Remember the Moment Associated With It”. And maybe by then I’ll remember the moment associated with it.

So far the cleaning is not going well. I might just have to move into a two bedroom apartment.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with your roommate--you've got too much crap! Don't even MENTION the word "move"!!--bl

Susan said...

I feel that way all the time with the amount of stuff I have!

Anonymous said...

I agree with anonymous #1! You should give some of your crap to the homeless people out back! :)

Peace out!!

Anonymous said...

Accumulation. It's a serious problem! You hang on to things (and when I say "you" I mean "we", so don't think I'm singling out you, although in this case, I am, but not really) and before you know it you have a pile in the corner and are starting to live like crazy Aunt Podelia, surrounded by coupons that are 20 years old, salad dressing bottles that expired in 1987 and magazines that are so old, a gentle sneeze can deteriorate them in seconds, to a pile of dust...

So, you say you have a hard time throwing things away? Or, is it possible your roomate has a hard time keeping things? Hmmmmm? Just because you have a pile doesn't mean it's useless or trash...it just needs a place to live. I suggest going to the magical Ikea, where they have shelves that not only go across, but UP and allow you to store things without taking up square footage...

Hmmm. I tried to post a link to certain shelves, but the blog page would not let me.

If all else fails, you can try this little trick. Throw away 25 things a week. They can be small, large, perishible or not. Just throw them away. This will allow for balance of all the other stuff you constantly bring in and out of the apt. This way, your place won't become overstuffed, and, hopefully, your apartment doesn't start gaining "movie" (as in Moving) weight.

Anonymous said...

As President of Pack Rats Annonymous, I applaude you on your efforts to hoard everything you touch in life.

Please keep in mind if you "throw" out your crap, genetics will cause you to findf new crap to fill those tiny spaces with.

PS: It could be worse. You could have dwarf lawn ornaments hidden in your room somewhere! Don't look...don't find out!