Monday, October 16, 2006

Half-Arse Weekend

Hi folks. Long time me no blog. I suspect I can't blame anyone for that but me, so we will press right along.

As you may have guessed from the heading, I had a rather half-arsed weekend. I felt a tad anti-social at times (yes, me - hard to believe I know, but stay with me, the story gets much better later on. OK, don't take my word for that), so decided to get on with some domestic reorganisation. This domestic reorganisation has been needed for some time. This is a rough translation of:

  1. I have piles of bills, although mostly paid, sitting around potentially breeding. As a rough calculation between water, power, gas, internet, phone, other phone, oh and the mortgage of course I seem to pay the GDP of Tuvalu each month*. you would think in these circumstances a decent organisational system would be an advantage. Mine involves putting it all in piles, and then about once every 9-12 months spending far too much of my hard-earned leisure time sorting through it. Clever, non?
  2. I also have too many books. Before you roll your eyes and say "Oh, what a surprise", if it isn't too late, I actually inherited a lot of them about 10 years ago, so they have some sentimental value too. An uncle who shared my rather Poindexter-esque taste in books left all his to me - all 1500 of them. So now I have a couple of thousand books 3 deep on bookshelves, a number of which may fall loosely into the categorisation with words such as 'fantasy' and 'fiction' in the title. And I am not talking fantasy in the sense of fingers' DVD collection, but I may be talking fiction of the scientific variety. In my defence, I also have a lot of English literature including my fair share of your English poets, although that doesn't get a regular run in recent years, and I have a few Halldor Laxnesses for your Icelandophiles out there... OK, and I am crap at throwing out books. I refuse to feel bad about this.
  3. I have a small house - ok, I just needed a third reason, but I blame it for not having enough storage. Selfish, selfish house..

On the weekend I set about filing the bills, moving some bookcases into the study and setting up my new TV in the lounge room. On Saturday, a filthily hot day, especially with a tin roof, I was dragging around bits of furniture, categorising bills, unpacking, sorting and restacking books, and hooking up lots of cables for tv-surround-sound-type-thingies. These fun-filled pastimes are always helped by having small dogs that alternately lie around sounding like they are about the expire, and every time you move something, decide that they simply must check it out, climb into it, or wrestle on it (the last being reserved for neatly stacked bill piles) - I swear they were nearly disowned about 4 times.

Why is it then after significant time spent doing all these things, that none of it is actually done? Why does my house look like a halfway house for domestic chores? Why is there crap everywhere? Could it be that I am incapable of seeing something through? Could it be that there are too many questions and not enough answers? Well? Speak up?

*Apologies to all you Tuvaluans stopping in at UO, I'm sure you make much, much more than that. Birdshit is white gold, I tells ya.

21 Comments:

At 12:34 pm, Blogger mushroom said...

birdshit is white gold hahahaha so funny because it almost is.

 
At 1:47 pm, Blogger fingers said...

Hey Todd, just coz I like porn and you have a pile of shitty books no one's ever heard of...it doesn't make you Yoda...

 
At 8:44 pm, Blogger Original Mel said...

Any time you want to pop round and tidy my apartment, please feel free. If you can locate the floor you're doing better than the last set of cleaners I hired.

 
At 9:45 am, Blogger Mountjoy said...

What the hell are the dogs doing inside the house?

 
At 9:51 am, Blogger Mex said...

please clarify - were you throwing out books or just reorganising them?

 
At 9:51 am, Blogger Mex said...

please clarify - were you throwing out books or just reorganising them?

 
At 9:51 am, Blogger Mex said...

please clarify - were you throwing out books or just reorganising them?

 
At 9:57 am, Blogger WJ said...

shroom - I reckon you gotta work with what you got, and if that is bird crap, bird crap it is....

fingers, no claim to being Yoda I am making, and the way things are going, I might be joining your library.

mountie on the day in question they were getting in the way at every opportunity. they do spend most of their time in the house, especially if the weather isn't particularly accommodating for sunbaking in the back yard. They are pugs after all, not kelpies. Leisure is their raison d'etre.

mex mex mex, organising. I am crap at getting rid of books. I actually managed to select 2 to get rid of, being two utterly awful sci fi craporamas, but that was it.

 
At 3:15 pm, Blogger killerrabbit said...

I agree. I never ever throw away books, because that is the equivalent of a rightwing book burning. Books must be held onto for ever because you never know when you may need to reread it. I still have all my childhood books including the Mr Men's, and the Naughiest Girl in School - Fingers probably has that one too.

 
At 8:14 am, Blogger fingers said...

Sorry kids, I love the written word more than most, but books are not sacred objects per se.
Some of them are garbage.
Throwing books out is not the same as book-burning either; not even close, KR. Books were burned by ignorant thugs who believed they could supress the thoughts contained therein by pretending they didn't exist. Comparing the disposal of excess, unwanted books to that is as pretentious as displaying your book collection on a shelf simply to convey the impression you're a fucking intellectual.
Not all books are worth keeping but you can always just give them away too...

 
At 12:13 pm, Blogger mushroom said...

I go to a library, it saves space and paper...

 
At 5:24 pm, Blogger Mex said...

yes fingers not all books are worth keeping, but surely they are not worthy of throwing away.

i have some rather crappy books that my father gave to me about 7 years ago and i still have them just becasue i cant bear to part with them.

mind you - i have given up lending books. it only leads to strife.

 
At 11:59 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I used to be a big fan of the library back in Oz - no risk, if you don't like the book just take it back. but we live too far away from the library here so I have bought lots of books, mainly of the $12 paperback family.

It's not like burning them but it does seem wasteful to throw them away; Georgia you have inspired me and I will sort through my books and take the ones I don't want to the Goodwill store. hey whatever isn't my cup of tea might be someone else's.

 
At 12:57 am, Blogger Thursday's Child said...

Sadly I have spent the past 2 days deciding which books to move with me back to Oz. It's painful, and I have forced my mother to continue storing the childhood books I adore.

I feel your pain WJ, but I am learning to be ruthless and only keep the ones I love.

 
At 5:10 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi all!

[url=http://ephedrine-moza.blogspot.com/]ephedrine[/url] http://ephedrine-moza.blogspot.com/
Don`t forget

 
At 7:51 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have you lost your mind,
Major?
[b][url="http://hydrocodone.dewall.info "]hydrocodone bitartate[/url][/b]

 
At 4:42 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good day to everyone
Aciphex
[url=http://www.yeshuanet.com/docs/images/Aciphex/index.html]Aciphex[/url]
http://www.yeshuanet.com/docs/images/Aciphex/index.html
-----------------------------------------------------
[url=http://www.yeshuanet.com/docs/images/Tramadol/index.html]Tramadol[/url]
http://www.yeshuanet.com/docs/images/Tramadol/index.html
Tramadol
*****************************************************
Bentyl
http://www.yeshuanet.com/docs/images/Bentyl/index.html
[url=http://www.yeshuanet.com/docs/images/Bentyl/index.html]Bentyl[/url]
thx to u

 
At 9:56 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Buenos ))

Here is some of them :
[url=http://info-graf.fr/mas/images/smilies/sitemap.html]sitemap[/url]
http://info-graf.fr/mas/images/smilies/sitemap.html
sitemap
I discover this searches :
[url=http://eagleinsurance.com.au/images/smilies/sitemap.html]map[/url]
map of the site
http://eagleinsurance.com.au/images/smilies/sitemap.html
Here is some of them :
[url=http://buff.com.au/images/smilies/sitemap.html]sites map[/url]
map sites
http://buff.com.au/images/smilies/sitemap.html
Please report me about all program bugs
Please post your comments

 
At 8:33 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

see nice new site -

[url=http://www.young-dro.com/profiles/blogs/buy-cheap-zoloft-generic] zoloft weight gain [/url]

http://www.young-dro.com/profiles/blogs/buy-cheap-zoloft-generic
[url=http://www.young-dro.com/profiles/blogs/buy-cheap-zoloft-generic] quitting zoloft [/url]

 
At 1:05 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey! Would you mind if I share your blog with my facebook group?
There's a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content. Please let me know. Thanks

my site: free wordpress theme
Feel free to visit my web-site themes free wordpress

 
At 12:11 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just like the valuable info you supply on your articles.
I will bookmark your weblog and test again right here frequently.
I am moderately certain I will be informed plenty of new stuff
proper here! Best of luck for the following!


my web blog Ernährung ohne Weizen

 

Post a Comment

<< Home