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fuck bodies
Mar. 1st, 2015 06:32 pmMy apartment is filled with clutter.
I have hoarder genetics from both sides of my family; for as long as I've known myself I've been both lazy, preferring other things to cleaning, and possessive, wanting to hang on to things. But right now, all I can think about is how stupid everything is -- or how many reminders there are of things I can't do.
I have 22 bookshelves, many of them double-stacked, of books that just sit there collecting dust. Some of them, I have no interest in; particularly, books from college that were assigned reading, or books from the various book clubs that I've been in, or nonfiction book picked up at library book sales in case they ever came in handy. But mostly, the books sit unused, untouched, loved but unappreciated, because I find physical books to be hard to manage. Hardback books are heavy and unwieldy and generally don't like to stay open; paperbacks are often too small and therefore equally unwieldy; and regardless, I can't reach the shelves.
(I should hire help. Take everything off the shelves, see what all there is, sort out the things I don't want and the things I don't really need and keep only the ones that are important to me. Re-sort so that like things are together, so the books by the same author are together, so I can find things again. But no one has the time or the patience, and there is no staging area to work with.)
I have one bookshelf, double-stacked, of dvds. Half of them have never been watched. Some have never been opened. Some I didn't even want in the first place. (Long story, involving a very persistent DVD subscription service combined with depression and anxiety on my part that kept me from canceling for very long time.) Some are redundant, in that the content is now available streaming, although the redundancy proves useful if I lose Internet access without losing power. Still: I can't reach the shelf, I don't know that I can open DVD cases, and I know I can't reach the player.
(I don't even know what to do with these. Particularly the ones that realistically I know I will never get around to watching, but I still want to watch them, someday.)
I have one bookshelf crammed with yarn, and a TV tray with scattered yarn and projects. (Elsewhere in the apartment, there is: a garbage bag full of yarn in my room; at least one very large box in the hallway containing another garbage bag full of yarn; scattered bags with treasures of fiber secreted about in various places; a shoe box full of yarn, somewhere in the closet; multiple kits that never made much progress, including one for a penguin cushion cover, and one for a very pretty bag, and other things that I once wanted to make. There are half finished projects in zip lock bags and plastic bags and boxes and tins. Somewhere, there is a hiding place where my knitting needles and stitch markers have gone. But the bookshelf is always very visible in ways the other things aren't.) Except I am slow and clumsy and have nothing of the dexterity or precision that I used to have. I don't do as much with yarn as I would like to.
(I should collect everything and put it in one place and sort through it, keeping the yarn that I love and giving away the rest, despite the lure of " someday I might use it". That would also let me gather the ones that are in hank form, so that I can get them wound so that I can knit from them, because that is another element of the problem: I can no longer wind balls myself, so much of the good yarn is currently unusable for me.)
All that is just what I can see from here.
Somewhere in my apartment, there is a box full of cross stitch supplies, fabric and frames and thread and partially finished projects. I can't do cross stitch any more. I don't have the mobility or the dexterity. I miss it like burning and can't bear to let it go, but the knowledge that I can't do it and never will -- that the really ornate project will forever remain only 5/6 done, but the other kits I have from that designer will never be started -- I am reminded of that every time I see the box.
Somewhere in my apartment, there are art supplies, crayons and colored pencils and coloring books and drawing books and collections of mandalas and sketch pads, all of which I couldn't use even if I could find them.
Somewhere, there are blank (empty or half-filled) writing journals dreaming of words that will never touch them.
Somewhere, there is a small stash of fabric, from failed hand-sewing attempts. I can't sew. I can't even sew with a yarn needle and yarn.
Somewhere, there are origami supplies, battered books and half-used collections of paper.
I should get rid of most if not all of these things; find new homes for the parts others can use, throw away or recycle the rest.
I can't.
All I can do is hurt.
I have hoarder genetics from both sides of my family; for as long as I've known myself I've been both lazy, preferring other things to cleaning, and possessive, wanting to hang on to things. But right now, all I can think about is how stupid everything is -- or how many reminders there are of things I can't do.
I have 22 bookshelves, many of them double-stacked, of books that just sit there collecting dust. Some of them, I have no interest in; particularly, books from college that were assigned reading, or books from the various book clubs that I've been in, or nonfiction book picked up at library book sales in case they ever came in handy. But mostly, the books sit unused, untouched, loved but unappreciated, because I find physical books to be hard to manage. Hardback books are heavy and unwieldy and generally don't like to stay open; paperbacks are often too small and therefore equally unwieldy; and regardless, I can't reach the shelves.
(I should hire help. Take everything off the shelves, see what all there is, sort out the things I don't want and the things I don't really need and keep only the ones that are important to me. Re-sort so that like things are together, so the books by the same author are together, so I can find things again. But no one has the time or the patience, and there is no staging area to work with.)
I have one bookshelf, double-stacked, of dvds. Half of them have never been watched. Some have never been opened. Some I didn't even want in the first place. (Long story, involving a very persistent DVD subscription service combined with depression and anxiety on my part that kept me from canceling for very long time.) Some are redundant, in that the content is now available streaming, although the redundancy proves useful if I lose Internet access without losing power. Still: I can't reach the shelf, I don't know that I can open DVD cases, and I know I can't reach the player.
(I don't even know what to do with these. Particularly the ones that realistically I know I will never get around to watching, but I still want to watch them, someday.)
I have one bookshelf crammed with yarn, and a TV tray with scattered yarn and projects. (Elsewhere in the apartment, there is: a garbage bag full of yarn in my room; at least one very large box in the hallway containing another garbage bag full of yarn; scattered bags with treasures of fiber secreted about in various places; a shoe box full of yarn, somewhere in the closet; multiple kits that never made much progress, including one for a penguin cushion cover, and one for a very pretty bag, and other things that I once wanted to make. There are half finished projects in zip lock bags and plastic bags and boxes and tins. Somewhere, there is a hiding place where my knitting needles and stitch markers have gone. But the bookshelf is always very visible in ways the other things aren't.) Except I am slow and clumsy and have nothing of the dexterity or precision that I used to have. I don't do as much with yarn as I would like to.
(I should collect everything and put it in one place and sort through it, keeping the yarn that I love and giving away the rest, despite the lure of " someday I might use it". That would also let me gather the ones that are in hank form, so that I can get them wound so that I can knit from them, because that is another element of the problem: I can no longer wind balls myself, so much of the good yarn is currently unusable for me.)
All that is just what I can see from here.
Somewhere in my apartment, there is a box full of cross stitch supplies, fabric and frames and thread and partially finished projects. I can't do cross stitch any more. I don't have the mobility or the dexterity. I miss it like burning and can't bear to let it go, but the knowledge that I can't do it and never will -- that the really ornate project will forever remain only 5/6 done, but the other kits I have from that designer will never be started -- I am reminded of that every time I see the box.
Somewhere in my apartment, there are art supplies, crayons and colored pencils and coloring books and drawing books and collections of mandalas and sketch pads, all of which I couldn't use even if I could find them.
Somewhere, there are blank (empty or half-filled) writing journals dreaming of words that will never touch them.
Somewhere, there is a small stash of fabric, from failed hand-sewing attempts. I can't sew. I can't even sew with a yarn needle and yarn.
Somewhere, there are origami supplies, battered books and half-used collections of paper.
I should get rid of most if not all of these things; find new homes for the parts others can use, throw away or recycle the rest.
I can't.
All I can do is hurt.
