ephemera

some things in life are meant to be transient – here today and gone tomorrow, it’s just a shame that for the last several years i have forgotten that and have gone into major hoarding mode.

ok i suppose i should confess at this point i am a collector. i collect a lot of things – there are comics (thousands upon thousands of them), there are books (more than i will ever read in my lifetime – and more being added), there are dvds/videos (a backlog that will never be cleared, but nice to know i have something to watch in the dull moments) there are the cds (but then can never have enough music….) add to all of that the toys, the prostitute call cards, photographs and you can see it soon adds up.
and i am not in the same league as some people who collect comics, books, cds, dvds etc – it’s just that i seem to collect them all….

none of this would be so bad if i was organised. i am not. this has meant that my flat is a landscape of heaps, piles, bundles, stacks of stuff.

recently i have taken it upon myself to get to grips with this state of affairs and clean my flat. now we are not talking one of those tv make over shows, we are talking about something that approaches the labours of hercules the only difference is that my efforts will not be written up as an heroic epic poem and what herc did in the aegean stables was child’s play compared with what i am undertaking.

why am i doing it?
1] after several years of letting it accumulate even i am now embarrassed by the mess.
2] i am getting too old to be climbing, clambouring and stepping over precarious piles of stuff in my own flat.
3] i wanted to use the microwave i bought several years ago but had stayed in a box untouched in all that time – but the box was being used as a place to stack books.
4] even i could see it was posing a health risk.
5] i needed a new challenge.
6] gas board needed to get to the gas meter and frankly i did not want to be liable for any injuries they may have sustained in my flat.

is it a scary picture i paint? trust me it is not as bad as it seems it is worse!

so for the last couple of weeks or so i have been sifting, sorting. moving, packing and stacking stuff/ i have been throwing out junk, i have been washing down surfaces, i have been recycling, i have been hovering and i have been making progress.
literally a ton of stuff has been either thrown away or recycled (i was a little shocked to realise that i had newspapers in the flat from 1999 ….. ooops). but it’s not finished – oh no not even close to it – but i have made that all important start. the kitchen is clean (though not spotless) it no longer looks like i could grow potatoes on the work surfaces in there. i can walk the length of the hall without having to stretch over a heap of stuff.

ok it means i am sleeping on the floor in the front room as i have turned the bedroom into a storage/sorting area, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

and as the saying goes where there is muck there is brass – i have found a range of things i had simply forgotten i had ever bought (have also found a lot of things which have left me wondering why i had bought them in the first place…..) i have found lots and lots and lots of loose change, not enough to make me rich, but enough to make me happy (and leave me wondering which books, cds or dvds shall i buy with them) i have found a stash of porn videos i forgot i had, a pair of glasses i thought i had lost, but i still haven’t found the batmobile bubble bath i know i bought and looked pretty darned good.

why am i telling you this – partly it is to embarrass myself to make sure that now that i have started this task i finish and maintain the flat in a state of tidiness.
and secondly it is my feeble excuse as to why i have been absent from the blog in such a long time. but i am back now and raring to go.

one of the really odd things about admitting that you are about to embark on a mammoth clear up is the amount of offers you get from women who say they will come around and help…. geez if only the place wasn’t so much of a mess……..