ORGANISE PHOTOGRAPHS
Transparencies, negatives and digital. At least digital – there is helpful software and everything. Completely hopeless of course, so might as well put it at the top of the list.
Where to even begin. By subject? Date? General era?
SORT THE LOFT
Or attic, which is the word I grew up with but which nobody in England seems to use. Googling yields niggling differences. Loft sounds, well, loftier, so we’ll go with that.
File photo
This is where things go to accumulate. Boxes from purchases retained “just in case it has to go back.” Suitcases filled with towels, as-new sleeping bags (been camping twice in 20 years), and coats. Clothes which no longer fit but may again some day. Bunny-proofing materials. Scrapboxes: like scrapbooks, but boxes. The fridge that came with the place which my wife still hasn’t forgiven me for hauling up there all by my lonesome. A bike and a half. And a whole lot of odds & ends.
It all needs to be inventoried, then sorted into neat piles and rows. Possibly labelled.
The elephant in the room is a collection of books which resists census. Call it a thousand. Sorry guys, there’s no room downstairs. Though you may end up at ground zero level anyway, if the structural beams don’t hold.
Once or twice I’ve wanted to lay my hands on a book I know is resting there, but given up the search and ordered another one instead.
GROW UP
Seriously, when is this process going to start?
FACEBOOK SPRING CLEAN
Yes, capture was achieved. Dragged kicking and screaming, I finally went limp and fell into its embrace. “Thou doth protest too much,” it whispered, all-knowing.
It’s important that you know I’m not bitter. No siree! I understand that we can’t all be friends; even on Facebook, where some claim that concept is devalued to near meaninglessness.
It has lately come to my attention that not all of my friend requests have been accepted. While I accept that it isn’t always possible to process applications in a timely fashion, there comes a point when one is faced with the grim reality that potential friends have examined my profile and found me wanting.
What to do? Hold on and hope they see the light? No. Optimism must be tempered by a refreshing cold splash of realism.
It is time to purge my friend request list. With fire. It’s the only way.
Call it an early spring cleaning. It’s Ash Wednesday anyway, no? “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
FINISH THE ENTIRE RUN OF STAR TREK VOYAGER
This really doesn’t belong here…
WRITE BOOK
This is such a scary thing I don’t usually write it down; to put it in a public to do list is unprecedented.
In search of lost time? It’s here, there, and everywhere
I’ve had a book busy not writing itself in my head for years now. Have a title, too, along with domain name which I’ve been paying for, as if that will help move things along. Somebody else has since nicked my title for their own book, which they’ve actually gone and written, but that’s OK, it’s been done before. (On edit: a wind seems to have toppled that document tree.)
LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE
Apprendre une autre langue.
MAKE A NEW TO DO LIST
What a sense of accomplishment!