That, in a nutshell, encapsulates much of my weekend. The R.C. and I got into one of our sporadic tidying fits and hauled eight or ten bags of miscellaneous debris out to the dumpster this weekend. (It's not that we're packrats - if we were, we'd never throw anything away - it's just that paper accumulates, no matter what you do to try and prevent it.)

We also cleared out massive numbers of books and old tapes - things we'd bought on DVD or inexplicably wound up with two copies of or stuff we'd taped and never watched again.

The whole thing was started by a new bookcase for the living room. (So much of my life revolves around the presence, or absence, of extra book storage space.) We got rid of the dining room table, a useless piece of furniture for people who don't "dine" and opened up a ton of extra floor space. Then we went into a frenzy of organizing and throwing out as we decided what to put on the bookcase we put in the space instead.

This led, as such things do, to the bedrooms, and by the time I went to bed last night, I'd not only cleaned out extraneous books, tapes, and DVDs, but I'd gone through the closet ruthlessly and, I have hopes, finally actually got rid of all of the clothes I will never wear.

I actually have four empty shelves in my room, so I can now buy new books! (Not that I was noticeably refraining before....) I haven't finished with cleaning out books - there are a bunch I just can't decide what to do with - things I bought, read, and enjoyed a lot, but probably wouldn't read again, but I think I've made a promising beginning.

I also did three loads of laundry, went to the grocery store, and did a small amount of vacuuming and dusting.

There's more to do but I ran out of steam and the R.C. has been groaning over her aches and pains since Saturday evening, so it will have to wait. (If we ever actually did the entire apartment at once, entropy would probably reverse itself in shock. I don't get in the mood for "housework" very often.)

It was not an inexpensive weekend, by any means. Although it might not sound like it, that trip to the Container Store to buy the bookcase wound up costing me $150 for my half of the bookcase and the assorted Really Interesting And Useful Things that I always seem to wind up buying when I'm there, but I do feel, for a change, like I didn't just fritter the weekend away enjoying myself lazily.

Still. It's nice to have room to walk around in the living room. And it's nice to look at the neatly tidied shelves where you can, for a change, see everything that's available. And it's nice to look at my freshly laundered clothing in the closet and realize that everything hanging there is something I'd actually wear. It's nice to be able to get to all of my books (except the ones in storage) easily.

One of the drawbacks, of course, was that as I was moving things around and rearranging them, I found myself getting distracted by dozens of books I haven't had the time to read in the last year or two. I kept being tempted to stop and read through some of them.

But I didn't. That way lies disaster and Living With The Mess for weeks on end.

Today, I am not in the mood to work. Which isn't unusual for a Monday.

And now, I have a conference call. Excuse me.