Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

The local tidying process is about equal parts removal of actual stuff (books, fanzines, clothes that don't fit, comic books, shoes that have worn out, odd containers of spices…) and removal of dust. The dust is physically annoying, certainly. The stuff is sometimes difficult: even as I know that I will never reread X book, or that if I haven't looked at those apa mailings in fifteen years, I'm not likely to, it feels a little weird to be recycling, throwing away, or in some cases giving away so much stuff. I'm keeping a few things, in some cases by category (issues of Bento and Hothead Paisan, for example.

There are some bright points: for example, I apparently bought a copy of John M. Ford's The Final Reflection sometime in the past few years, put it down, and then put something on top of it. And a few more somethings on top of that. It surfaced about a week ago, and I have now read it.

Also, in going through a box yesterday, I found some ditto'd zines, and I think there must have been a ditto master in there, because my hand came away with purple stains. Folks, I have not used ditto masters on a fanzine since the 1980s. The early 1980s. (What we kept from that particular box was three odd dice and one shooter marble.)

I am not going to list things discarded or recycled, except that I decided that I don't need large numbers of undistributed copies of my old fanzines, because such lists would bring only regret.

ETA: Yes, having a cleaner and less cluttered apartment is a good thing, but the absence of random zine I hadn't thought of in years isn't a specific bright point, it's a very small piece of clearing, say, a pile of stuff off a table.

More saved comments. ( favors and owing people things, heirlooms, anything worth doing…, the difference between consequences and punishment, hugging )

I cleared my desk off yesterday. Well, most of it: there's still a pile in front of the printer, but a much smaller pile than there had been 24 hours ago.

I threw away a lot of paper, and moved a few things to a different pile, pending figuring out where to store them. I also sneezed quite a bit, from the dust stirred up. I also found a few oddments: a $25 Lands End gift card (which I probably can find a use for) and a perfectly nice rounded rock. I have no idea where the rock came from, or why it was there. I know where the fine hunk of amethyst I washed came from, and why.