OKAY.

Not hot anymore, clean floor, new fridge. New home for blog, too.

(My computer kind of died in the heat on Sunday, causing untold stress and woe, but it has come back to life and seems fine now.)

The new fridge is white, and taller but no wider than my old one, and has a freezer that actually works, and produces a low sci-fi-esque hum with a few quiet rattles. I like it.

Now my floor is cluttered with boxes of books and other stuff.

I've decided I can put away my crappy bookself stereo (I use my computer and mp3 player for music now) and some of my older books and CDs, to make more space for myself and the things I need the most.

Over the door to my apartment there's a large shelf-like storage nook -- obviously the layout of this place is fairly insane -- which is now occupied by boxes and piles of books and a few old posters and records, but if I organize that stuff more tightly, and maybe even get rid of some of it, it'll free up a good deal more space up there. Ditto the very top shelf of my closet.

Annoyingly, both of those places are very hard to reach, which is why I haven't made better use of them before now. (Example: to get to the space over the door I have to clear off a narrow shelf -- fortunately built-in, and sturdy -- and climb onto it from a chair.) Still, cutting down on clutter and making more room in my limited living space has to take precedence.

Deciding which books to put away is always hard, but I find it kind of absorbing too, in that it obliges me to reorder and prioritize my interests. As with sorting out papers, I have to resist the temptation to grab something interesting that I haven't looked at for a while and read it right then instead of finishing the project.

I'd like to hide my huge, heavy, ugly, barely-used-for-months TV/VCR, too, but it doesn't fit anywhere. Maybe I'll ask K. if he wants it for a while, but I'm pretty sure he won't.

I haven't forgotten my vow to sort out the box of papers that used to be on and under my coffee table, either. My new goal for that is to have it done by, um, Sunday night.

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Citra-Solv works pretty well on grimy walls and tile, and smells nice; too bad it's so expensive. I've cleaned some areas of the walls and kitchen cupboard doors with it, but basically my entire apartment would have to be doused in Citra-Solv and wiped down to make a really noticeable difference. I can do a little at a time, though.

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This is the story of my struggle...
I reached out for my credit card...
In a super store
Surrounded by luxury goods
I need a freezer
I need a hi-fi...
OH NO! I LEFT IT IN MY OTHER SUIT!
"Capital, It Fails Us Now," Gang of Four, 1981

(A non-sonic extract can't do it justice without the note of sheer panic in the scream at the end, or the bassline.)