Haiku Friday - The Second

I Clean Once a Year
Parents are in town
So my house is clean and nice
But only briefly

This Explains All The Stalled Projects
My door is broken
It bothered me for a while
Now it's just background

Also, more underwear
I just did laundry
Not more than two weeks ago
I'll buy more t-shirts

I worry that if I can't see them, they will begin plotting a revolt
These rooms frighten me
With all their clean surfaces
Where did my things go?!?!

This Is Your Brain On Coffee
I'm caffeinated
It does not affect my at-
Ooo, something shiny!

Pipe dreams... coming true?

I.  Love.  Books.  Can't get enough of 'em (e-reader, you say?  No way, I keep it real, mothafucka).  I like to read while I walk, while I cook, while I listen to radio, while I watch TV, while I read other things, while I attempt to converse, while I'm falling asleep, while I play with my dog, while I write blog posts, pretty much while I do everything except drive.  Turns out reading while driving is a terrible idea, even if the book is Operating Motor Vehicles for Dummies.

Since I moved, my books have been in two four-foot high stacks of boxes.  In retrospect, it's an old house and maybe leaving several hundred pounds of books in a small area was a bad plan, but the floor still appears to be unbowed and solid.

Last Sunday, I decided I wanted to be able to look at all my books, which meant taking them out of boxes.  Some time ago, I had made the totally ridiculous statement "When I unpack all my books, I should organize them, too!"  Stupid.  When I packed my books up, I was like a headless chicken on speed, so they were not put in boxes with rhyme or reason or neatness.

But, there I was, just having watched a season of Breaking Bad, hanging out in my underwear, and staring at a pile of books on my floor.  I mean, at the very least, I wanted all the books by one author to be grouped together, right?  And maybe all my books on the rise and fall of colonialism in Africa should be grouped together, so that they don't start all kinds of pretentious conversations around my young adult sci-fi books and make them feel inferior?

Next thing I knew, I had stacks of books, by the first letter of the author's last name (fiction only), YA books, then non-fiction and graphic novels.  Halfway through, it looked like this:

Ryder: These stacks of books look unstable.  Wait, oh god, am I my own genre?  Will have I have to sleep  on the book shelf?  Am I just here so there can be some kind of black and white and read all over joke?

Haiku Friday - The first

I am thinking about posting haiku about my crappy projects or whatevs every Friday.  First one, successfully done.  We'll see if I do it next week.

Because the name of my blog is so nicely 5 syllables
My crappy projects
Have a surprisingly high
Rate of completion

Why I am afraid to build anything that comes from Target
The instruction book
Is missing, as are some screws
Please hand me more glue

Imminent entropy
Alphabetized books -
I am scared of touching you
You took so much work

For my family¹
Organization
Doesn't come naturally
We make Luttrell piles

Saturdays
What now?  Unpacking?
I wanted to finish that
But then there was beer


¹Thanks to Irene & Laura for pointing out that the lack of organization is in the genes, and props to Alex for coining the term "Luttrell pile."

My Crappy Meetings

I'm pretty good at meetings.  At least, I'm pretty good at the types of meetings I like to have, which are quick and efficient.  (I've noticed that all these things rise together: position in a company, self importance, enjoyment of one's own voice, and length of meetings.... which seems uncoincidental.)

In the meetings that I run with people who are approximately my level, no one talks more or less than they need to, everything is completely sorted out in about 15 minutes, and everyone leaves with a clear idea of what they need to do.

In order to give the appearance of preparedness, I like to show up with a messenger bag full of stuff.  It's like no matter what question they ask me, I could - at any moment - whip out a reference manual, a scale, and a calculator and MATH¹ right there on the table.

In truth, all I have actually brought to the meeting is a set of plans printed out on 11x17 paper and the writing utensil that was closest to my hand when I left.  I do not put these plans in my bag because my bag is full of unrelated crap, and I am afraid that when I pull the plans out, things will go flying (see previous entries on losing stuff and lack of organization).

Things actually in the bag: planner, journal, unsent postcards, tampons, keys, sunglasses, somewhere between 2 and 73 gum wrappers, gum, sometimes a broken watch (I like to think of it as Schrödinger's watch in that it is both there an not there at any given time), business cards, and receipts.

That's right, I take a full bag, which I do not open, and a separate pile of papers, which I often drop.  All so I can look like I am prepared.


¹In lieu of actually MATHing, I say things like "It's all very complicated, I'll send you the spreadsheet" and then wait for the look of panic followed by a polite refusal of said spreadsheet.  It doesn't even have to be a spreadsheet, sometimes I say "code section" or "email from the city" or "shnarfle²" and it elicits the same response.  People like to know you did the work, but they don't want to know the dirty, boring details.
²I made this word up.  Right at this minute.  You never what's going to happen here; it's craziness.

Organization Schmorganization

As anyone who has lived with me can attest, I am not organized.  My argument would be that I do not appear to be organized.  No, my clothes don't live in drawers, and my books aren't all nicely alphabetized (by genre, then by author or subject, not that I've thought about it) and put in bookshelves.  They stay in piles.  I know what's in the piles, but to the untrained eye it probably looks like a mess.

This organization issue of mine is compounded when I move.  I do not pack things in any kind of organized fashion, and then I don't usually bother to organize them when I unpack again.  In my last house, this actually worked out because there were closets galore.  I actually had 4 or 5 boxes that I never even opened that contain god knows what.

In my new place, though, there are only two (doorless!) closets, so:

My closet drank too much absinthe and threw up all over the guest room.  It refuses to go to rehab - I fear it will end up like Amy Winehouse.