Too much stuff

(March 04, 2006)

Gah. I'm a sweaty dusty mess. I'm spending this entire weekend getting one step closer to a goal: an apartment that would make me jealous when I walk into it, until I remember with joy that it's mine. CLEANING! But also organizing and purging a bunch of worthless shit.

It ain't quite working out.

Every year I'm closer to living in an abode that doesn't feel disposable. Disposable furniture means things like storage units that are really just stacked plastic crates. The ones you buy at Target in cheerful primary colors are only slightly better than the pitted black grocery store cast-offs with "Hood Dairy" stamped on the side, but that's like saying a freshly microwaved Hot Pocket is better than a hard, cold Hot Pocket. They both fucking suck, but one can be somewhat tolerable if there's nothing else at all. The whole beggers/choosers deal.

Disposable is cheap plastic drawer systems that eventually warp and don't stand quite straight. Disposable is things-used-as-other-things, like the CD holder that's now a spice rack or the cardboard boxes that hold bills and papers.

Disposable is also the tricks we do that feel right for about ten minutes. For example, I needed more desk space in my office alcove. What to do, what to do. Buying a big huge new desk is right out. So, take a plastic molded folding table from the "home" aisle at CVS ($19.99), put it against a wall and on top of it, set the top half (the "hutch" I guess) of a blonde particle board desk that has long been thrown out. Like other such bright ideas, my first thought was, "Voila! A great place to store the CDs and press kits of whatever band I'm promoting! And I can stuff envelopes right here on this table!" After a short time, it's more like, "Voila! Another embarrassing piece of crap substitute for a real work area."

I don't know why I'm talking about my office area. That folding table/desk hutch combo isn't going anywhere for awhile. This weekend I'm working on the bedroom. My office and the bedroom suck. Next to that table thing is my desk, a particle board & metal pipe affair that wobbles, and it's wobbled since I got it from K-mart ten years ago, and it's wobbled more each year and with each move.

It's depressing, but not as depressing as the bedroom.

The bed is in the center. All around the periphery are clothes, books, electronic gear, gig bags, amps, magazines and a whole mess of other clutter. It's like the bed is an island and the room is an ocean of crap.

It's the shelving, I think. There's just nowhere to PUT anything away. If there's no "away" to put anything, then it's not-away. Also known as "a mess."

I don't need my place to look like a page in Home & Garden. I just want a bedroom that you walk into and the floor is clear, you don't have to step over anything, nothing is stacked in teetering towers, no mounds of anything threaten to take over...

MAYBE it's the shelving. Could also be that we just have too much damn stuff. I hope more shelves help, because we bought two cube towers from the hardware store last night ($160), carrying one each the two blocks home. They're nearly identical to two cube shelves Joe had already had, and basically the same color as a regular bookshelf Neil gave me from his Arlington place.

So five different shelf units lined up side by side.

I've filled them with the books that had been on the floor. When I stand back to look at them, it is better than it was. But it's not great. It's not fooling anybody. It's a cobbled-together solution that still sucks.

*sigh*

We all start out with disposable furniture. There are always new things parents give you, old-but-good things parents give you, old things you buy on your own, and a few new things you buy on your own. I do have a fabulous dining set, kitchen island, baker's rack and teak & glass shelves. The daybed was a great idea from way back in the first Marion Street apartment. So the living room and kitchen are okay, very comfy and welcoming.

That's good, I guess, since that's where the guests will be. No one but us sees the bedroom or my office.

Alright. Well. This was a really boring story that accomplished nothing but giving me a break from the hell in the next room. Gotta go put the room back into some sort of order.

Maybe it's not the shelving that's the problem. Maybe we both just have too fucking much STUFF.

I have a feeling I am about to fill a large number of very big garbage bags.