On a related note...

I finally cleaned my room yesterday in preparation for the house cleaner's visit. I'm not one of those people who cleans for the cleaners, I'm one of those people who is so dirty that in order for the cleaner to enter the domicile, I have to clean. Not kidding. The past two or three weeks my room literally exploded and I had approximately five separate piles of clothes (laundry, coats, recent clean laundry, clean laundry pulled from drawers, and clean laundry that had been air dried) and like 14 days worth of mail in the entry to my room. It was truly sickening and probably hazardous to my health. (I think there were also like 8 glasses of water half drunk and also a mostly-drunk PBR can on top of a stack of New Yorkers. Not kidding again.)

Anyway, so the point of all this is that in an amazing, unheard of twist (I am full of these non-revelation revelations today), I feel much more relaxed and clear-headed today. It appears that a clean room does indeed equal a clean mind. After the room was mostly clean, I found myself discovering new things I could do to make it feel more clean. I put the subwoofer I'm no longer using in the closet. I got rid of my desk which I'd replaced with a piano two months ago. I managed to find real clothes for work today instead of a tshirt with jeans and a sweatshirt. I even remembered to floss last night before bed. I feel like I can face the world. This, my friends, seems to be a true accomplishment. Now if only I can sustain it through this weekend. Hurrah!

Catalogs and rambling

Well, I took Casey's advice and signed up for CatalogChoice.org. I had wanted to do that anyway, take my name off of mailing lists or whatever, but hadn't found quite the right way to do it. This was a really easy and awesome way to unsubscribe from catalogs. What freaked me out, though, was that now, instead of taking every junk catalog I get and tossing it into the recycling, now I stack them until I have a moment to go online and unsubscribe from them. It's actually horrifying to discover how many catalogs I receive, from companies I've never heard from. So now I have unsubscribed from 12 so far. I am only allowing myself to receive three catalogs -- J.Crew, Urban Outfitters, and Anthropologie. Am I repeating myself? I might be. Anyway, I am pretty excited about this. Next step: composting. God knows where we'll find a spot for it in our tiny house.

Tonight I watched an ep of Friday Night Lights (only 2 episodes behind now), ate ramen, and then cleaned my room. It was so in need of it -- Sara knows because she was just here and having to share the space with me. It was literally like an explosion. So now I've cleaned up most of it and feel a bit better. I still can't wait for Sunday, when I can take the time to really start digging into my organizing and such. Dad, your comment about living simply and collecting stuff was sort of true -- I think it's just a matter of picking and choosing which stuff you have or keep. I really need to get rid of clothes, since right now I don't have enough space in my closet or drawers for what I own. I just keep telling myself, one step at a time. So right now it's only 9:30 and I am about to settle in for either an episode of Buffy or one of the Office, which I think I need to revisit. Man. I'm wiped out.