Zathras' Great Machine

The cleaning bug bites

Hmm. Well, first Denise has gotten me hooked on chai tea, now it appears I've picked up her cleaning perseveration as well. I've spent the last week or two going over this place and making it nice, neat, and clean. I'm not done yet, of course, but that's OK... I can take my time over the next month or so and do a thorough job of it. I've had little piles of minutia sitting around all over the house for who knows how long. Now, though, most of them are gone. There's only one big one left (the one in the side bedroom) and another smaller one in the master bedroom. I've also cleaned up the bookcases quite a bit -- it tears my heart out to throw away any books, but I did manage to do it with just a few the other day, convincing myself that there was no real loss in throwing out (for example) manuals for software that hasn't been published since the early to mid nineties.

I've even gone thru my closet and thrown out a bunch of old leftover stuff in there as well. The only major project in there is going thru the old boxes of stuff that I haven't gone thru since I left Brattleboro, which is itself an indication that it isn't exactly something that I can't live without. I know there are a few things left over in there that I want to salvage, but most of it will probably get the old heave-ho as well.

I feel a mite guilty at some of the things I'm tossing, such as flannel sheets for a full-size bed (I haven't had a full-size bed in years; the one I have now is a queen). I'd prefer to donate it to chairty or something like that, so I've temporarily put a hold on my plan to sort thru the old clothes that I don't wear anymore to see whehter it would be feasible to donate them. It probably won't be, since I don't have a car, but it's worth a look.

Funny finding old electronics in the closet, too, such as the answering machine and CD player that I bought back when I was in high school. :-) And as a matter of fact, those were both still in use up until I left Bratt, but when I got to Silver Spring, they were retired. I was listening to music CDs mostly on my notebook by then (and now, I have a component DVD player that plays music CDs, of course). And I didn't have a land line in the apartment until just a few months ago, at which time the new cordless phone I bought included a digital answering machine, so my nearly 20-year-old tape-based machine is going into the heap. I doubt if I could even give that thing away, let alone sell it on eBay. The CD player probably wouldn't be worth more than ten bucks, either, but I'll give it a quick look before I throw it out.

My birthday went quietly and nicely. Denise showered me with gifts, so much so that I felt a bit squeamish/guilty over it (but then, I guess, as the old saying goes, "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander"). She gave me a Bab 5 DVD, a rather sizeable box of Godiva chocolates, a Bab 5 DVD, and the soundtrack from "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" on CD. She also sent a very nice floral arrangement. My mother also gave me a neat present: a round-trip ticket to San Francisco to see Denise. All in all, not a bad way to turn a year older. Shaw, much to his unnecessary embarrassment, did not know it was my birthday; he hastily sent me an Elvis e-greeting card when I mentioned it not long before going to bed. (You shouldn't have, Shaw. Really. I hate Elvis. ;-) That's OK, though -- it's the thought that counts).

Speaking of eBay, I'm having something of a hard time getting most of my old junk to go anywhere! I guess this is not a case of one man's junk being another man's treasure. I did sell the second season of Babylon 5 on VHS, but so far, nothing else has gone. Big project there is going to be sorting thru, photographing, and listing all my back issues of Playboy (I don't read it or subscribe anymore; I'd like to, but I just don't have the time these days. Maybe I will after I finish this big cleaning project and can actually relax enough to read). I've done some investigation, and it looks like a few of these actually are collectible, despite their relative newness. I've got one issue from just a few years ago, for example, that features Carmen Electra, and someone else sold the same issue last week for a pretty good chunk of change.

So I'll probably tackle that this weekend -- sort them all out, dust them off, throw away the ones that unfortunately got water-damaged and mildewed in the closet *grumble* and do the listings there.

I feel good about getting all of this done, but I'm definitely glad I don't have a yard to rake/mow/whatever like Denise does. I haven't done yard work in over twenty years (not having lived in a place since then that had a yard requiring my work), and I'm not sorry in the least. Yard work is probably the least favorite activity I've ever undertaken in my life, and that's no exaggeration.