four hours of cleaning and I can see more of my floor than before, the overflowing trash and recycling are now empty, and I cleared off one of ten shelves that need shoveling through. I should never have gotten this shelving unit; it just made me feel like I could set stuff down anywhere and so for many years I have and now it is a dense mass of random crap. I know where most everything is, but it is still random crap and much of it needs tossing.

I don't know what to do with mail or instruction manuals. I do have an expanding file where I put documents that I think I might want to keep and one pocket is for instruction manuals for small electronic things like watches and phones but I hardly ever go back and refer to any of them. but at least they have a place. so while I was digging instruction manuals out from the mess on the desk shelf of the whole unit I did know where to put them, but I don't know what to do with the ones I already have in there. do I still have that clock? do I need to have a map of all the function buttons on that calculator?

mail is a different question. what am I supposed to do with documents from my bank or from social security or other pieces that have lots of identity-stealing information on them? why, for instance, do debit cards always come in a cardstock flyer with your account number printed on it? you can't throw it away unless you have a shredder. so I tore off the end that had the number on it, will put that in my expanding file and throw out the rest. outdated notifications from my bank I don't know what to do with. I have put them in the recycling before, sometimes tearing them down the middle of account numbers first, but that does not seem particularly secure to me. creditor notices--although if someone wants those credit card numbers they are welcome to them.

tomorrow I must recycle the boxes still lining the pathway from my door to my desk and try to clean off my long-neglected altar/shrine/candle burning place as well as the mess that is now sitting on the shelf above the desk I can suddenly see. I almost wish I had the energy to keep going now but I don't. too tired. but I am proud of myself for finding my desk. now I can do stuff on it like look at things with my radio shack pocket microscope.

I think it might be time to go take some facebook quizzes now so I can clutter up my friends' timelines. >: )

then bed for an unpredictable amount of time.