Reading: John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman

Listening: '40s Christmas carols still in my head

Viewing: A cleaner apartment. Magpies.

Moving: A good long walk

Learning: what kind of furniture we need.

8 January 2000: Action

I stayed up way too late putting up pages and pictures but still woke up at 7:30. I am determined to have a Productive day. I have put away all the Christmas stuff (except the Pooh Christmas dishtowel that's in the wash). I took down all the Christmas cards that I strung on the wall, removed any photographs, and ripped the fronts off the ones that can be gift tags--i.e., that have a suitable image on one side and no message on the other. The backs of cards, even when they're just signatures, I keep with my letters.

And I didn't buy a Pooh dishtowel. My mother gave it to me.

I've been doing bookkeeping and housekeeping at the Mac, registering my camera and declining the QPB's monthly selection for a bit while Blake played on and near his windowsill. In addition to singing from inside his oatmeal box, he likes to tramp on top of it and hear the hollow echoes.

Before I become the Terrible Trivium and compile lists of books, I should do something like vacuum. Finally almost everything is away. Well, no. Everything that went to Florida is either away or waiting for the laundry fairy, but yesterday RDC cleared out his office at DU, bringing home about four shelf feet of books and lots of papers, which we have no place to file. And I got three hardcovers and three paperbacks for Christmas, so I'm not guiltless here myself.

Yesterday RDC suggested buying a third computer table because maybe the futon could live folded up under it. I'm reluctant to give up the futon, since it seems so inhospitable not to have a spare bed, but we don't use it much, malheuresment. More than Mrs. Norris, anyway. But the study, now the at-home office, doesn't need a table. It needs drawers and shelves and filing space. I think the futon's going to go.

I know the right thing to do is to get rid of stuff, but instead we're going to buy more stuff to keep the other stuff in. A lamp for the living room and another for the study to illuminate all the stuff, a bureau to keep sweatshirts and playclothes to clear closets for dresses and business shirts, bookcases probably for the dining room because that's the last free space, a filing cabinet probably under the light switch in the study (since that switch is the only reason the bookcases aren't flush against the doorsill.

Speaking of storing, what should I do with my gown? Hanging from the rod, my regular long dresses--ankle length--skim the closet floor already. This gown should be shorter, since it's essentially strapless, but it has to hang from those loops. The bottom of the skirt will get crumpled against the floor. And should I keep it on the cardboard hanger from the cleaners? The cardboard might help keep the bodice's shape but on that hanger all the gown's weight is borne on the spaghetti straps, not the loops. I have the wrap folded over a hanger and I've considered putting the gown over the wrap, folded at its waist. But the waist is still wider than the hanger. It must be better to crumple the bottom of the skirt. Would boxing it be better? Not if I want to keep the creases out.

Waah waah waah.

Speaking of bitching, my left eye is bloodshot to an extreme.

I never wear contacts traveling by car or plane, so I didn't wear them Tuesday, but I did Wednesday, back in Colorado, for some brilliant reason. I usually wet my fingers with saline before I pluck the little buggers out but I didn't have any. (I have a separate solution, basically hydrogen peroxide, to disinfect and store them.) I noticed that taking out the left one out hurt and I hoped it was the lack of saline: my eye would be dry--me tired and my eye not yet reacclimated to 5280'. Or it coud be the Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis again, come to strip me of my vanity and any hope of doing step once classes start again.