llcoolvad | Desk Job

I set myself the task of cleaning my desk because it really really needed it. I mean, embarrassingly bad. I took these pictures before I started (July 17):

Iccky, right? That's got to be the worst it's ever been (at least since I moved in here). It's pretty obvious that I never actually sit at it, isn't it? I've been piling everything there and ignoring it for way too long — I keep everything else tidy by trashing my desk! The only excuse I have is that I brought a whole bunch of stuff home from storage and started sorting it out, and then needed to sleep or something silly and lost momentum. This is what losing momentum looks like.

So I started working on it, and the first night I got it here (I could finally reach the calendar to change it!):

I am not allowing myself to cheat at all. No moving things into a drawer so they're merely out of sight.

The next thing I tackled was the white shelf on top of the desk. I sorted all the CDs, CD-ROMS, and random other crap, ripped all the CDs to MP3 that I hadn't, added them to my CD spreadsheet, then boxed them all up to go into storage. I then also cleaned out my shelves that hold my DVDs, updated THAT spreadsheet, grouped all the TV shows together and alphabetized the movies. I also got rid of all the crap on the shelves in front of the DVDs, which I found was a mental barrier to actually watching anything.

The little wooden box on the bottom shelf there is where I keep ticket stubs and mementos, hence the recent list of shows I'd been to. I know. Obsessive, right? At least I take it in a harmless direction. (That's Suzanne's bird painting, there, and that's GreyKitty in the little picture frame. The desk I've had since I was about 12.)

OK, so this evening I finally finished.

The white basket is for receipts; the green basket is the pet medication zone. The white doggie with the crazy orange background was painted by my friend Val. The broken Don and Jerry bobblehead desk was given to me by Val. Oh, and if you notice there's an ink stain in front of the bobbleheads, that was by Patrick. I'm all about my friends and their art!

And now I'm finished!