Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I've been doing some decluttering lately, while I'm in an appropriate frame of mind. Some of it is clothing that either doesn't fit anymore, or that I realized I don't like. I've also culled some of the old apas and fanzines (this is the part that surprises me) along with tossing things like the manual for a fax machine we replaced a year ago, years-old hotel receipts, and the like.

This afternoon, I was doing some stretches, and realized I could see three Scrabble^TM sets from where I was standing. None of them was the set we regularly use. Realistically, I think we need two: the regular set, and one of the travel sets. But this bit of the culling can wait: part of why this is emotionally reasonable is that I'm skipping anything that feels difficult.

I may address the difficult parts if and when I answer all the easy questions, like "why do I have an old takeout menu for a restaurant we never even ordered from?" Or not: this is a process which really is worth doing in part, because having more space in the sock drawer is worthwhile even if I have more socks than I in some sense need.

Is it worth trying to give away unwanted dangly earrings, or are people going to be put off by (actual or perceived) risk of infection? Some of them are singletons that I bought as pairs (I lose things): I had thought of wearing unmatched earrings, but it turns out I don't. And some are pairs that I haven't worn in ages: I had thought I would like them better than I do, or maybe my tastes have changed.

or, I haven't updated lately except with gym notes, though I meant to.

I've been doing a bit more cooking today (not as much as I would like, still, but cooking is a piece of day-to-day-life that I can pay strangers to take care of). Today, I got cattitude to talk me through his frittata recipe. He also kindly offered to beat the eggs, so as to spare my shoulder. One apple and cheddar frittata, a nice lunch for the two of us. (Or maybe an oven omelet, since it's fluffy and not broiled; adrian_turtle makes a different style of frittata, which I also like.) It's been a while since I cooked something new to me; that's more work that throwing together matzoh meal pancakes or turning the leftover turkey into a rice pilaf for dinner. Those I can do in my sleep.

My joints continue to be creaky, even on days when I don't seem to have done much. That said, the shoulder is healing again, albeit slowly. The knees I am starting to suspect may never get back to normal/pain-free. Or at least not with what we're doing now. At some point I may investigate physical therapy instead of, or in addition to, the balance and strengthening work my trainer and I have been doing. It also doesn't help that any time I seem to be making progress, I push things. (I am not looking for any sort of medical advice here.)

I'm doing a lot of rereading lately, including ebooks (Project Gutenberg and the Baen Free Library). Or it feels like a lot, but my list of recently finished ebooks includes The Voyage of the Beagle and The Portrait of Dorian Gray, neither of which I'd read before.

On the other hand, Cattitude and I continue to cull the book collection and thus reclaim space. This is mostly things we've concluded we will never reread, but not all: we don't need a hardcover Complete Oscar Wilde, given Project Gutenberg. We are not looking for homes for anything this round, though. People might want some of the ones we're discarding this time, but I don't care about them enough to make the effort. I was pleasantly surprised that the copy of Liddell and Scott was claimed so quickly when I offered it. The claimant has made a generous donation to two charities I suggested; I explicitly didn't want to be paid for it directly. That would have felt wrong, somehow.

The OE of A Women's APA sent out invitations a couple of months ago, for all alumnae to send in "this is what I'm up to" notes to be included in mailing 200. I sent about a page, and recently got fourteen pages, including my own. [The "OE" is the person who organizes things, sends out mailings, and so on. I was OE of AWA for a few years. An apa is a bit like a group blog and a bit like a listserv, if that helps; there were a lot more of them before most of fandom could count on easy net access.] I've noted a couple of women's contact information, and may yet try to write to them. (My entry included the contact information here.) I'm trying, slowly, to get more of a social life back. This should probably be more focused on people in the New York area, which most of them aren't.)

I had expected to find my birth certificate and college diploma in one of the boxes I went through some weeks ago, and hadn't. Email with rysmiel reminded me of this, and of the general ongoing decluttering (I'm still cluttered by rysmiel's standards, but they're offering useful encouragement from a distance such that the mess is not irritating them). I mentioned it to cattitude, who reminded me of where some other boxes are. I also remembered the ancient filing cabinet in the bedroom, and decided to look there.

First, I got rid of a few obviously-unneeded things, like an ancient pad of newsprint paper for sketching, and a letter-size binder with tabs for every letter of the alphabet, and no actual content.

In the next drawer I looked in, I found an envelope labeled "Vicki birth certificates." There they are, the originals from the hospital (somewhere, there's a certified copy from the Board of Health from sometime in the 1980s). It also contains an infant vaccination record.

I was vaccinated for polio using both vaccines, a total of six doses. I have also been vaccinated against smallpox. And measles, DPT, and whatever was on later pages: I'm just startled that I got both polio vaccines. Not knowing where that paper was, I was revaccinated for measles in 1984 when it went around the dorms, but adrian_turtle says she was told in 1982 that the old vaccine didn't give lasting immunity, so it may be just as well.

I am not in a good state of mind for purging things. With the first bag of stuff, as I was about to throw it away, I brought it back into the apartment, put it down, and confirmed that I had not somehow put the important papers there instead of in the trash. With the second, I decided that no, I wasn't prepared to throw away mailings of an apa just because I had thrown away other mailings of the same apa that had been in a box,and removed half of what was in the bag. So, I will do no further decluttering tonight, though I am willing and able to tell Cattitude that I don't want an old, possibly broken, large clicky keyboard, or an extremely right-handed trackball.

I think I've managed a reasonable balance between resting, and not getting bored or fidgety. I took advantage of a sunny interlude to re-waterproof my boots, because they leaked slightly in Montreal last weekend. I also went for a short walk in the park, on the snow: in a different and inferior pair of boots that I should probably get rid of, because they are simultaneously too big for my feet and too small around my calves.

I've also done a bit more of decluttering, some of the stuff from the top of my dresser. Lots of ancient ATM receipts, con badges, ancient tea bags, and business cards of people I have no recollection of. I also turned up one game I might play again (Nuclear War, the card game), some coins, both U.S. and foreign, and a necklace that I had no recollection of. It's elisem's work, and I would have known that much even without the handwritten tag. And then, describing the decluttering to Lise (WINOLJ), I suddenly remembered buying it, near the end of a Minicon (I think that was the same Sunday afternoon when Elise's sister gave a talk on some characteristics of fannish speech and conversation). Freshwater pearls and mother-of-pearl, and maybe I'll remember it sometime when I'm wearing a suitably bright-colored shirt (it would be lost against white and, I think, look wrong against most pastels).

Other things I'm keeping include some photos my mother sent me between 1981 and 1990 (based on the return address) and a pair of small blue lampwork beads. [Also, most of my jewelry lives on the dresser, as do pony tail holders and my deodorant. Things that are supposed to be there get to stay, of course. And I have to decide whether that category includes my Beads of the Month stashes, and if not, where they are supposed to live.