From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Blowsy E. Fitzrovian

The good news: I already found a new home for the file cabinet.  The delay in getting it there came in the form of a toddler who didn't want her parent to leave the house to come and get it, so I have it for a couple more days.  That's ok, but I emptied the drawers prematurely and everything is sitting on a chair in the office.

When I look at this stack, I see a lot of pain and stress from the past.  Financial records from a time where I was busy settling a large estate debt and medical records detailing procedures that ultimately came to nothing.  Plus a lot of things I just held onto because I needed them for a long time but not anymore.

This might take a while, as I think I've said before, shredding paper takes up more space and I think I've taken up my share in my duplex's recycling bin.

I decided last night that I'm sick of these TV dramas and movies about people in the suburbs whose marriages are falling apart, or their dull suburban lives where the only thing that makes sense to do is have an affair and then everything implodes.  Who watches these?  Well, me I guess.  I tried watching the BBC series Doctor Foster, which I read has garnered positive reactions.  But what is so great about watching a show about someone who has a seemingly perfect life and perfect house and kid, and the house is always way too big for the married couple and the kid (THERE'S ALWAYS JUST ONE KID), and then it all goes up in flames because someone has some extra sex. It's a concept from the 1980s, where the tightness of the nuclear family embodies the material successes of the breadwinner(s).  If one thing's not going as planned, it must all be shit!  Dull, dull dull... more people should treat this theme the way John Waters did.  I guess Lifetime Movie Network gets closer to what I wish for.  Maybe I should shut up and write a script instead of wasting my time writing about papers that need to be shredded.

Let me take this moment to congratulate myself yet again for calling the VVA in to take away some more bags of stuff.  I'm finally using the yellow bags they leave as a courtesy when they come by.  Maybe this weekend I'll get rid of the bag of styrofoam peanuts at last too!

Make Like a Baby and Head Out

It doesn't look like too much is going on here, but there's been a little bit of activity:

I cleared out another drawer of the file cabinet.  I have someone coming to take it away permenently (thanks Buy Nothing Portland page on Facebook!) so it has to be empty after 6pm today. Also, I need to clear off the top.  The stuff inside the drawers will be dealt with in the coming week.  A lot of it is scraps that belonged to Dylan or letters to him.  I'll just have to find a safe place for those things for a while to come yet.

After dispersing the drawer contents, I aim to get whatever is covering the tables in the bottom picture cleaned up.  I might be getting rid of the drawing table, or at least moving it downstairs and folding it up for a while.  I prefer to draw on a board sitting on my lap.

The great thing about all of this work is that I'm motivated to clean up some small areas in the kitchen and living room that have been nagging at me.  The momentum I get from moving stuff out of the office is making me find the right homes for the things in the rest of the house.  See you tomorrow, we hope.

The Slattern's Gazette

Here we are some days later, the floor much clearer and also vacuumed. It helped that the vacuum cleaner was already stuck in the office. I dumped anything I could find on the floor into a large sack for sorting this evening, which I accomplished while watching Trumbo.

I've created a file crate for papers I do want to keep for now, in preparation for getting the file cabinet out of the house.  There seems to be one file cabinet or another stuck in my life at any given time.

As things improve in the office room, everything else in the house gets a little bit neglected but that's ok for now.  I really need to get this done so it doesn't bring me down anymore!

I went to the Twilight Rummage Sale again last Saturday night, where I had a table AND I was one of the DJs.  I began selling the DVDs I've been harboring for six years at half off the normal price.  I'm making room for some other stuff I want to bring this fall.  Watch this space, to quote Rachel Maddow.

Hacking Time

I set a timer for 20 minutes last night and just went at the office/studio room, picking up whatever I could and putting it in its place.  Here's where I left it:

Still pretty terrible, with a difference.  Now I can get to the other side of the room without taking 7 league boot steps over each mound.  After the buzzer went off I spent maybe another 15 minutes doing some shredding.  I came to find out that a shredder I'd salvaged off the sidewalk doesn't work, so I have to use the old (heavy) one.  What a fucking surprise.

I'm kind of working without an end goal yet.  I'm just picking everything up and putting it in its proper place as I find it, or to dispose of it permanently, so I don't have to deal with them again!

Four on the Floor

I decided to work around my irritation with world events and get on with taking care of some of the things that I can manage.  Like this room for instance.

I've been using it to place things when I'm cleaning up other spaces.  Even Marie Kondo would be furious with me. Here's another view:

This is a result of several things - stuff I brought home from my parents' place when trying to help my dad clean out my mom's things; half-hearted attempts to clean out the file cabinet and get rid of it; ambivalence about keeping the overload of art and small objects I've acquired over my life.

I keep the door shut out of shame when people come over.  A visitor recently thought it was the bathroom and almost went in.  Peeing on any of this stuff would not be a big deal at this point.  I want to get rid of a lot of it anyway, even the carpet.

 I'm summoning a lot of my willpower to dedicate a little time each evening to sort this shit out.  I can't stand to even go in this room so it's sort of urgent.  There are some things I need scattered on the floor and I don't even know where to begin.

I've been using stuff like this to give me a spiritual boost. This works too:

Awright, carry on ya twats.

All the Tourists of Fitzrovia

Just over a week ago, I was in London.  Right after that I boarded a train for Paris and stayed there five days.  I'm still getting acclimated to my time zone and catching up on all the laundry I need to do.

You'd think I would have tried visiting the real Fitzrovia, but the closest I got was Covent Garden.  I was rather disappointed to see how many shitty upscale chain boutiques were there, but not too surprised.  I then went to my old neighborhood in Southwark to see the street I lived on and the apartment building, and reflect on all that's changed in the years since I was there.

My room was with the window to the left of the door

My neighborhood was so hardcore, and apparently still is, that a spiked fence with "anti-climb" paint encircles the car park.

When I was newly widowed, I often thought of that weird time in London when everything was strange and I had to find all these resources inside myself to make ends meet.  I guess we all have more inside us than we give ourselves credit for, when we need to draw upon it.

And now that a few days have gone by and there's been another bombing in London I feel unable to do any commentary right now about the good times I've had, or about cleaning and tidying and such.  One of the reasons this blog is lagging these days is that there are more important things in the world going on.  I don't need cleaning therapy as much as I did, either.  I'm not giving up on blogging yet, but it's hard to come up with fun tips or anecdotes these days.