This morning (I’m being generous; it was 11ish) I hopped out of bed like a little sprite and sprang into cleaning action. Last night I had stopped by Rite Aid to ready myself for the cleanliness rapture and stock up on cleaning supplies. My apartment has been filthy and crammed with random crap for a very long time now, and I really only spruce it up on the surface when I have people over. But it’s been a long time (read: probably never) since I really cleaned it.
I brewed the world’s tiniest pot of coffee (my new $8 coffee maker from Fred’s is among the most adorable appliances I have ever laid eyes upon) and proceeded to down two black cups as I worked my way through the kitchen and bedroom. I meticulously scrubbed the baseboards and moulding. The air conditioner got a nice little rubdown, as did my dusty dresser and nightstand. But my magnum opus today? The closets.
My closets have always been prone to abuse. Call it a walk-in closet and I will eventually treat it like an offsite storage unit, crammed to the brim. But lately I’ve been feeling so insane and so suffocated by unseen forces that every time I opened my living room or bedroom closets, I fantasized about saying something dramatic and throwing myself off a bridge. Yes, it got that bad.
So today I was ruthless and just started chucking stuff and piling everything else up to take to the Goodwill. My old stereo, DVD player, desk lamp, printer, feather boa, phone, answering machine, beaded curtain, you name it. If it was in my closet and I haven’t touched it in six months (aside from my old Dell and my box of old drawings and journals, which I’m still not ready to part with), it’s gone.
Kind of. It’s all sitting in my hallway right now, but that’s only because I want to drop the stuff off during the Goodwill’s business hours. And I also kind of figured I might unload some of the electronics stuff to people I know. But by tomorrow evening, that shit is outta here. I feel a hundred pounds lighter. Not in my ass, unfortunately, but in my heart. I just lug so much around with me that sometimes I can’t breathe from the weight of it.
Does this mean I’m done with being a slobby packrat? Hell to the naw. That’s in my genes. And besides, if I wasn’t a packrat, would I be able to up and produce a gem like this letter I wrote to Dear Abby when I was twelve? I think not. Behold! A twelve-year-old’s infinite, pithy wisdom: completely uninformed, yet full of opinions. And to think I’ve continued that legacy to this day. Amazing!
[This is funny on its own, but to think that just seven or so years later, I’d be writing something like this? Priceless.]
That letter is beautiful. How clever.. It reminds me of my own childhood journals where I swear I’ll never marry unless the man is from Australia or Poland. I fucked that one up.
Can I just say that your apartment is always sanitary?
The funniest part is where you etched over the crux of your argument: “need I say more?”
You did not capitalize G-O-D. Heathen.
B, wow — Poland! Really? That is awesome. I was too caught up in the hilarity of Polack jokes at the time to even consider such a thing.
Fritz, My favorite thing about the whole letter is the tone. I am such a little snot, invoking Abby’s name condescendingly. Yow.
I think you certainly called Abby on the carpet in that letter. Ah, the infinite wisdom a dozen years on this planet can bring one.
I’m a packrat too.
I hope Abby followed up by specifying that one does not “sniff” crack, but smokes it from a heated spoon like a lady.