Barking at shovels

Relaxing by cleaning up

I think this is the first weekend when I've had nothing scheduled and/or urgent to do since Christmas. I think that means my life is officially Back To Normal. I'm happy.

In a related-but-not-quite-the-same event, I have now been living in this apartment long enough that "I just moved in and I'm still unpacking" no longer feels like an legit excuse for why the place still has boxes and crap piled everywhere. You know, I think this is because the place was neater last weekend, and I've been kind of a lazy bastard for a week. I've spent a few hours this morning alternating between sorting stuff out -- rearranging my office was a big one -- and surfing the net. Will probably continue this for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm developing a fair shopping list of stuff I could really use -- another filing cabinet, a desk lamp that doesn't look quite so Nineties Grad Student Refugee, a real desk, and so on -- but I can't allow myself to go spend any more money this week. My 600-Mile Shopping Trip last weekend has got to be the last unnecessary spending for a while.

(Okay, it was actually a trip to Montreal to visit my brother, and get a new visa at the border while I was at it. But I was hardly thrifty in the bars, and on the way out of town I stopped in to the mega-Loblaws -- all I intended to pick up was a few bottles of Clamato and some decent plum sauce. Ended up on a $120 tear through the store grabbing all kinds of things that are either impossible or just too expensive to buy in Boston or I just happened to know I needed. All-dressed chips, spicy Bick's pickles, Montreal-style bagels, cutting boards, Quebecois beer, chocolatine pastry, and some boring housewares to inflate the price. It felt distinctly odd getting home after a 300-mile drive and having the first thing I needed to do be: unload the groceries.)

Now I must get back to fixing up my place the old-fashioned way. It's a beautiful afternoon and it kind of feels like I ought to be outside, but I can suppress that impulse by reminding myself it's still only 4C. And it feels good and productive to get some tidying up done -- I'm so frigging old. Every square foot of cleared floorspace makes the Baby Jesus laugh.

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