I'm cleaning off my desk today.

Helen (Of course, I remember who you are.) That solution is perfect.

Now to find someone who trusts me.

Joe(that will be a challenge)Nation

I have hopes for a house move-around this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow.


See, the computer is on the dining room table, which is in the, uh, library. known to the realtor as Master Bedroom. This may or may not be the Camera Italiana.. as I've some italy paintings on the walls. Mid-room is my mother's cedar chest (aka hope chest), filled up until a few days ago with a bunch of my rugs. I can't put the rugs wherever because I first have to do this and that and then that. The cedar chest is broken, just the last straw from the moving episode of late 2005. I've sullenly left it there for about six months now, with something light and bright on top (white bathrobe) so I don't trip over it. So, this last week I untaped the moving blanket and exposed the dire damage, and it ain't so dire, in contrast to, say, the tea cart and the mahogany bed, oh, never mind. SO, I'll fix it, then I can put small framed but not hung **** in there, and put c/chest under the Colle'd'val'd'elsa paint'g, thus freeing up mid-room.

I can put the d. room table in the living room, and array some of the chairs piled up now in the living room around it, and put the computer on one of the painted door desks I have, one being now in the living room.

When I set up the computer again, I can force myself to connect the scanner, and and and.

I'll do it for you, Joe.

What sort of stuff is on your desk? If it's unfinished writings, this could take me a very long time. But if it's unpaid bills and receipts and to-do lists, I could clear that off in less than an hour. When it comes to organizing, I'm ruthless. But I am efficient.

Thank you, Eva, but no, it would mean the end of our friendship. How would you ever know whether to keep or toss the little torn piece of paper with this written on it?

GSD4000NBB RM855542 B

It doesn't look like anything, but it is a vital, vital, vital piece of information that, if lost, is only re-obtainable by me opening the dishwasher door and reading it off the little metal plate. It's now filed, or more exactly, written down on the dishwasher warranty paper that is filed in the DISHWASHER file in the Warranty Section of the bottom file drawer like I meant to do a couple of weeks ago.

It was mostly crap. Envelopes and filler cards of bills I had paid weeks ago. I never have unpaid bills. Is that neurotic or just good sense? And I never have any writings, everything is done on my PalmTreo700WX and then zapped over to this thing which zaps it or them onto WINDOW, my poor excuse for a blog.

I did get a few things straight. I found a hundred dollars in gift certificates, two hundred if you count the coupons from the Men's Wearhouse

and I figured out the word.
It's not File Act Toss FAT.It's another word I kept telling myself last night. FORT with Organize? No.
Some website said it was PO for pass on, FAPOT but PO is just Act, right?

Then it came to me..... READ. It's an R for READ that's missing.

Wait a minute, I said to my honey, that would make it FRAT or FART, those would be easy to remember but what editor would take an article entitled "Organize your life by FARTing"?? Or FRATing??? But what else could it be??

My sweetie, who is way better at Scrabble than me, looked at with that soft look that women put on when their men appear completely at sea.

....

Joe(The word is RAFT, she said, what's this piece of paper? GSD400....)Nation

LOL Joe - unless you warn your desk-cleaning-exchange associate beforehand that you're in cahoots with some deep-cover microwave intercepts operators, he's sure to throw out any and all mystery notations of the kind. It helps if the person knows nothing of Scrabble - I don't, and ..uuum my desk is also out of control... maybe an idea here?!

I found that , one way to get organized is THROW OUT YER PRINTER. I was forever printing off copies of papers and then putting them in notebooks, then I d just print them off and arrange them on subject stacks, finally , I was just printing **** and letting it pile up, so whenever I needed something Id have to rifle through these piles and they were all where? on my desk!

Printers are tools of satan.

printers = satanic fools

Inspired by Joe's industry, I just tossed a 4 inch bundle of web addresses that I thought I should investigate.

Now I can start from Go--again.

Farmerman is definitely absolutely positively keerect about printers.

I am also sure that somewhere in the historical record the following quotations may be found:

1435 Ast yur Lordship didst decree..we proceedth to maeke renderments of his Lordship's arkcivse ufing Mr. J. Gutenberg's maechine und one twin-ed of same ast always on ParChment as God Almighty hath Himfelsf intended.

2200 B.C.E. We ourselves, implore (fragment lost) to place at ease the tablets of stone makers. They are lost. Their women weep and their (fragment lost) . Could not some of The GreatONE Who Must Be Obeyed, Ruler of All the Worlds, Great and Small (fragment lost) records of grain caravans on papryus and on tablets yet?

Date not certain - but dialectal comparsions point to somewhere between eight and ten thousand years b.c.e. :

PoemSong of the Ouo people
(Two thousandth thirty third stanza)
Thencomes the mudder maker people
no more the song, no more the song
makre the mud and sunbake makres
no more the song, not song not song.
So the children's children laughed and
marked the mud and baked makres as
they said
But still they sang the song of Ouo
just in case the world would crack.


Joe(Mil.rule 23/140-66 All copies of orginals shall be copied in triplicate and distributed as per directive 8A0-100S/MPO-PPo/NSA)Nation

I too have been inspired by Joe. I have ordered a dumpster and plan to clean my home office on Monday. I may make a home theatre out of the space that I will reclaim.

Thanks, Joe.

another thing to get rid of , is all exercise equipt. This stuff takes EFFORT, something , in which most people are unwilling to invest. If everyone would admit that most of their exercise equipment gizmos are nothing more than big expensive towel driers and tee shirt hanger thingies.

I got rid of a Nordic Track (I bought it at a yard sale). I should have realized that the damn things are just something that you walk into in the middle of the night while carrying a tray of milk and cookies. Stupid gaddam Nordic Track

OK, well, even though I have lots of experience organizing people's stuff for them, I'm glad you got everything sorted out without my help, Joe. I would've hated to lose a friend. Especially over some cryptic note that would've been buried forever in the UFO file* I would have created for you.




*The U-Figure(it)-Out file
(my last resort for people who keep unidentifiable notes)

I have made progress. (No one seems too fascinated... yet).

Laundry roomette:
Hung godawful fringed velour 4 x 7 foot (what? rug? I did buy it at an "antique" store, cheap), with swans and ponds theme, from the ceiling.. it's so tacky I like it. Part of the revolving revolting art show.
Brought in metal topped white cabinet from garage. Placed soap, oxyclean, and light bulbs in it. Need to unwarp the door, and sand the drawers so they move again. Storage did this cabinet no good at all. Hung Pacco's dark green dog bed from his crate... comforting in its way.
The other laundry room wall has one of my oldies, a 4 x 5 foot painting of a painting class, when I'd tired of ptg only the model.

In the 'library' - moved art crappee to "spare" room, making space for the cedar chest to go, when I fix it in..... a few minutes.

Looking forward to taking command of the computer zone....

Au contraire, my fair lass. I sit on the edge of my chair awaiting further developments. My breath comes in labored gasps.

You really have to stop reading those dreadful romance novels, Gus. It's affecting your writing.

I'll let you know, Gus, when I pick which rug makes it into the New Launderette.

Funny, Eva

How dare you, SIR!

I AM NOT a "Sir"! I beg your pardon!




Oh, crap. It's catching.

Eva, that would look nice in velour...