How can two people, no kids, in an 800 sq foot aparment, own SO MUCH SHIT?
I’m halfway through my four day weekend, and I have to say that I have been extraordinarily productive so far. (Jeff was productive along with me today, but yesterday he just went to work like usual, so he has some catching up to do.)
My productive-ness yesterday consisted of car errands and apartment cleaning. My blue-underneath, gray-from-dirt Honda was about 1K miles overdue for an oil change as well, so I dropped it off at the dealer and walked the half mile or so back to the apartment. At 8:30 in the morning. On my day off. I told you I’d been adjusting my schedule to earlier hours!
While my car was being serviced, I launched into a cleaning frenzy. I made it through all the scouring and floor-mopping, and as much of the vacuuming and dusting as was possible given the general level of clutter, before it was time to pick up my car and go get it cleaned. Yup, after at least a year away (it might even be more), I finally took my poor baby to the carwash! They had to put it through twice, and I wound up giving a 110% tip to the guy who did the final hand-wash and inside-scrubbing. That job sucks, especially in summer.
Finally, everything was clean – just in time for Jeff’s arrival home. Lucky boy.
We treated ourselves to dinner at Far Niente with my friends Torrin and Barb. They were both really impressed with the place; Barb commented it looked like a good place to spot movie stars (in fact, we never have). Both our usual busboy (Roberto) and our waiter (whose name I never remember) recognized us, and we splurged on some expensive wine. Jeff commented afterwards that we’d given Barb and Torrin an awfully skewed impression of our typical Friday night routine!
Today, I forced Jeff to join me in some spring cleaning. I thought we’d spend an hour, maybe two, trying to clear some junk out of the office closet and the apartment in general. We’ve been talking about building some bookshelves this weekend, and it seemed like a good idea to get a little organized first so we’d have a clearer idea of what we’d need, and where we’d want to put it.
Well, six hours later, we were still going. Every time I finished clearing all the junk out of one closet, I’d find another one. Then another drawer. Or another file cabinet. Oh look, what’s this random pile of video tapes back here? What’s in this stack of cardboard tubes? Do I really need to keep this ratty gray stuffed cat that I once dressed up as a sci-fi critter for a DragonCon?
Eeks.
We were brutal. Against all our packrat instincts (actually, I think Jeff is a MUCH worse packrat than I am), we ruthlessly chucked anything we had forgotten we owned, or couldn’t see using in the next few years, or couldn’t remember why we kept it in the first place.
By 5pm, I thought we were done. I took these pictures to illustrate the magnitude of the cleanup process – piles of stuff to throw away or give out:
Trash |
Donations |
Sadly, I was wrong. At least 5 more VERY FULL trash bags were put together over the next few hours, and one or two more donation bags full of books.
There were a few tough decisions to make. It seems like there’s always a pile of stuff that you don’t really want to keep – it just collects dust – but you can’t imagine throwing out, for “sentimental reasons.” I probably had more of that stuff than Jeff! Interestingly, most of my sentimental stuff no longer held the attachment that it used to, and I found myself throwing away old tapes, old journals (no worries; I long ago typed them up!), and random mementos that were falling apart.
I came across my collection of convention badges from all the science fiction conventions I’d been to. In college, these were a fun dorm room decoration. These days, they’ve been stuck in a manilla envelope under a pile of clothes, and I honestly can’t see any future time when I’d want to display them. So I decided I’d just take a picture (in case I ever really wanted to see what they all looked like) – and into the junk pile they went.
We broke for dinner – and then tackled the kitchen. Among the things to land in the trash: oatmeal from before I knew Jeff (neither of us eats oatmeal), several rock-hard sacks of brown sugar, a grease-fire extinguisher that had been buried back behind so much stuff it was impossible to reach anyway, Jeff’s old nametag from working at Macy’s, 3 of the 10 or so spatulas that we apparently own, and bits and pieces from long-discarded coffee makers.
I’ll spare you a photo of the kitchen trash.
We also own a remarkable number of cookbooks (more than 10), considering how little cooking we do.
But the really sad thing is that we’re still not done! After completing the kitchen, I breathed a sigh of relief – our apartment was junk-free. And then I noticed the closet in the living room. And remembered the cupboard in the bathroom. And there’s one more kitchen cupboard, come to think of it. But I really think that’ll be all…
Our original plan this morning was to clean, then split up – I’d hit the gym for a few hours, while Jeff got bookcase supplies at Home Depot. We figured we’d still have all evening to start work on this masterpiece of wood, and maybe even watch a movie. Instead, all we did was throw shit out. Thank god our manager is out of town; he would have been apoplectic seeing the number of bags we tossed into the building dumpster.
Ha ha ha I loove your entry! I get the same way sometimes. Ben HATES it — well, not the results, but being recruited. He calls it my “Cleaning Nazi Mode.” Good luck getting rid of your junk! :)
Comment by Kathy Brantley — 7/3/2005 @ 7:33 pm
If you move often enough, it helps to reduce accumulation. If you’re OCD, that helps too.
Comment by Jen Yu — 7/4/2005 @ 7:39 pm
Wow! Good for you! I finally hung the last couple pictures on my walls yesterday, only 5 weeks after moving in… :)
Comment by Mir — 7/10/2005 @ 8:42 am