Decluttering

As I mentioned before I am dedicating a week to "decluttering". I've been told it raises the joy factor substantially. Now, I'm a bit of pack rat and all over my room, I keep stumbling over pieces of my past that I had thought I lost. Clothes I no longer fit. CDs stuffed in a corner in a sort of disarray. (I really, really need a CD organizer - preferably a tall one, preferably two). Also more bookshelves. My books are stuffed into boxes or piled on chairs, my desk, my side table.

My filing cabinet (that I acquired second hand and with such pride) is collapsing in on itself. Time to shift some of the stuff out and reorganise what's left inside. Time to replace the separations within the cabinets as they have collapsed. Time to give away the stuff, stuff, stuff cluttering up the room.

My wardrobe has all but collapsed. It's been a constant pain for years...but I keep living with this inconvenience for so many years that I no longer notice it. Or rather, I notice it, feel irritated for a while, then shift my attention to some other irritation or bury myself in a book and hope it will all go away. (Typical!)

I didn't need a double bed. There's just one of me. And a double bed just takes up so much of my limited space. Yes, I need my own space...but until I make that great leap forward, I would have to make the most of the space allotted. So out with the sturdy bed frame and uncomfortable mattress with the springs poking through. In with a small single bed and the really comfortable doctor-approved mattress.

Addy said she would take the bedframe. But as for the wonky wardrobe and uncomfortable mattress...no one would take in but one of those charity recycling vans that you can call to come get it. Problem was, I had lost the number. The real number. The one they put on those recycling hatches all over PJ is not the real number. I called it once and got a very irate woman telling me off.

So I would have to Google to find out what it was.

First, a trip to Ikea to see if I could get the necessary. No. I couldn't. I got a few boxes in which I could transfer the journals from the filing cabinet (if there's one thing I'm overflowing with, it's journals and this is why the filing cabinet was collapsing. Also to transfer the nice stuff, like cards, wrapping paper, ribbons, stuff that as a "gift fiend" I tend to use quite a bit.

I spent two days doing the transfers. It was fun, especially thumbing through old journals and trying to gauge my state of mind at any one point. Journals transferred. So far so good.

It took me two more days (in the Hari Raya holiday stretch) to transfer the gift-related stuff. With Grizzly Adams on in the background. Because Grizzly Adams makes me feel good. All those cute animals, mountain vistas, not to mention Ben...and of course, there's James...and Mad Jack. It's like a sanctuary of sorts. So, sanctuary of sorts in the background while I unload the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet and spread it out on the hall floor and start picking through the different things, writing out labels, put them in their respective folders in the box (I had forked out RM35 for the filing cabinet fillings).

So far so good. I ordered a new (and much larger wardrobe) as well as a single bed and nice mattress from a furniture store near the house. She said it would be delivered in a little over a week. After all, there were the Raya holidays coming up and deliveries would probably be put on hold for a week. So, OK then.

The lady called to tell me when the new furniture would be arriving. But a certain numbness pervaded. All through the weekend, I didn't do a single thing, not a thing, to prepare for it. Which meant that when the furniture movers arrived at our doorstep, firstly, I was stuck in a jam on my way home from work, secondly that rather than rush home first, I had to rush to the ATM to get the balance of the money I was supposed to pay them and thirdly, they had to move my present furniture (still unemptied) out of the room to put the new furniture in.

In all the commotion, Arnold, who was wandering around lazily, seemingly not interested, managed to sink his teeth into the calf of one of the furniture movers who has busy carrying something heavy into the house. Maggot, who had been openly hostile had been tied up. Arnold, who was not (openly hostile) had been allowed to wander free.

Could there be anyone more disorganised? If there is, I'd like you tell me who.

So there I was, new bed set up alongside old bed and covered in clothes I had just liberated from the old cupboard (which Dadda and I could then carry out in pieces). Grumpy as hell because I had left a shitload of work undone in the office to come back. Somehow everything seemed to be getting away from me.

And still the chaos swirled.

Vijay texted to ask if I was going to go watch Mark tonight. It being Monday. I replied briefly. "No." In texting word, a one-word answer is rude. I didn't care. I was surrounded by and knee-deep in chaos. If he had appeared in front of me to ask the same thing, I would have attacked him screaming.

(Moral of the story: when I'm frazzled, give me a wide, wide berth...of course, you would have to know I'm frazzled in the first place, which might be difficult if you had no warning)

I took out a box. I decided that any clothes I hadn't worn in some time would go into the box...no exceptions. Well, maybe three dressed, but no other exceptions whatsoever.

So the box starting filling up fast. And I separated the work clothes from the going out clothes and hung them up in the separate cubicles in my cool new cupboard. I folded some clothes. Figured out what I would use each of my new four drawers for.

Slowly the pile receded and my mood improved. When Vijay texted again...I was less terse. And then I asked if he would be willing to be used for hard labour. (I wouldn't have blamed him if he said no, considering). But being a cheerful boy, he agreed. I needed his help to disassemble present bed. And move the pieces out. Also, to move the mattress. All heavy heavy stuff.

So, covered in dust, I had a quick shower, went to pick him, and brought him in to help me...we struggled to disassemble the bed as it had been over 10 years since I'd assembled it here. Sweat poured down his face. And then we succeeded and the bits and pieces were left in the room...while the mattress was moved outside. (We went out for a drink to Backyard after in celebration and caught the last bit of Mark's performance)

But the recyclers...I had lost the number. A simple Googling would have solved the problem. But I was too caught up with work that week. There was my Options cover to finish. Somehow, it was just not flowing. Not water but molasses. Thick fudgy gooey molasses....Wednesday night finally done...and then stuck around to see the story cleared, page laid out (with a break for mutton friend rice at Backyard 2) and when I got home, I tossed and turned and worried about possible lawsuits.

Another interview Thursday morning as I hadn't taped the interview before and I just couldn't write the story with the sketchy notes I had taken down. Heck, I could hardly understand the damn notes. A call to Lester who was busy pumping iron. Tomorrow morning Jen, now's not a good time.

OK, so tomorrow came. And I was tired. That kind of tiredness that comes from spinning your wheels in mud and wondering why the words don't coalesce. I had been working on the room in the meantime...it looked kinda sorta OK. But the stuff outside my window...still yet to be picked up. And, and, and...it just made me weary to think of it all...

Emptied out my drawers and found I had coins from countries I had never been to, like Belgium and Holland...also euros, a truckload of British pounds, some US dollars...euros....and what's this Deutschemarks, French francs, and is than an Indian rupee? All the travels and travails of the past decade laid out on the floor beside me. I started to separate the cash, count it, count it, count it...interesting.

Tired.

Very tired.

And corporate story still not done.

Warrant story done though.

And I hadn't touched the Malaysia Day stuff. No problem, no problem at all.

Tired.

Very tired.

Brain refusing to function.

Did a crappy corporate story. Cleared one Malaysia Day story. Wrote another. Enough, time for home, to sleep, perchance to be bitten by mosquitoes. swarms of them, swarms, simply swarms.

Wish I could fall
on a night like this
into your loving arms
for a moonlight kiss.

Weekend. Work sorta done. Hung out with Addy. Late lunch at Sambal Hijau in Kampung Sungai Penchala (authentic kampung Malay food) and then we each bought at Edge and sprawled on her sofa, giggling at the Wan Azmi interview, especially when he challenged anyone who said that his disposal of his stake in E&O was Daim-related:

"...a pair of pistols, Dataran Merdeka at dawn, and you beside me singing in the wilderness...and the wilderness is paradise enow..."

Finally found a number for the folk to come get the furniture. (Cats had begun to find the mattress interesting and hide behind it, where it leaned up against the remnants of the cupboard to the great indignation of one white Maggotty dog). They said Sunday ....and asked me for money for some cause or other. I figured RM10 wouldn't kill me. And it was worth it if they took the furniture. With it, went a box of clothes, an old suitcase, some shoe boxes, and the mosquito frier I had bought for Mum one birthday, but which didn't seem to work all that well. Oh well, it was still new. And relatively unused.

So now, all that's left is the bookshelves. Everything's more or less sorted.

Do I feel better? Well if you're asking me if I feel better than I was feeling at this time last week, I would say, probably. Maybe. I don't know.

Let's see what happens when I've put up the new bookshelves, transferred the books and declared, khattam shud.

I'd like to make myself believe
that planet earth turns slowly...