So, I've been mostly spending time in the meat world, not the electronic world, for the last week. (I don't update that often, so I forgive anyone who really didn't notice.)

I'm happy to say that my mashed foot is mostly all healed. I barely limp at all these days and think nothing of putting on a pair of shoes and going out and driving myself somewhere. Quite the independent grown-up I am!

Remember last time I posted, when I said my October Resolution was to clean out my half of the storage unit? I am proud to announce that, unlike most of my resolutions, I've been hard at work keeping this one!

Thanks to the R.C.'s months of patient hard work cleaning a path in the mountain of boxes, I was able to start in the back of my stack, at the bottom. I figured the most interesting stuff would be there, since it would be the oldest. (These days, all I put into storage is a box of "legal papers" once a year.)

And boy did I find "stuff". First off, I found armloads of unorganized photos and additional armloads of half-filled albums. My first task was to spend two full days organizing, sorting, and labeling (where I could) all of those. We had a cold, snowy Sunday this week, so it was a good week to have an indoor project to work on, but I promise you I really was sick of the sight of my own face by the end of the weekend.

Other than that, I cannot believe some of the things I've put into storage over the years. (Any more than I can quite believe the things I'm learning about myself.)

I mean, I clearly remember selling off my Elvis albums at a friend's yard sale sometime in the 80s. I'm not sure, though, why I still have a box full o'memorabilia? Why didn't I sell it at the same time? Can I bring myself to throw it out now? (I found two stacks of photos from a trip two friends and I made to Memphis in the 70s. I've already organized millions of photos--can I just throw those away?)

Ditto for Doctor Who (but sans albums). Who knew I had an entire box full of old Doctor Who magazines and books, all from the 80s or before? What am I supposed to do with them? I can't quite bring myself to throw out actual books but I'm not sure there's anyone anywhere I can "give" them and the magazines to for resale or whatever.

And I am learning many things about me.

Did I ever tell you I worked on my school newspaper when I was in Junior High? Probably not, since I have zero memory of it, but I found a couple of certificates lauding my contribution to said publication, so I have to believe I did.

What do you do with old school yearbooks? I don't care about them, don't feel any urge to look at them, but am not entirely comfortable with the idea of tossing them into the trash. Dtto diplomas. I can almost see why you'd keep a High School or university diploma, but do I really need to keep one advertising the fact that I completed Junior High?

Yikes, what bad grades I got in school! Looking at my old Junior and Senior High School grade reports, I see a near-endless parade of Ds. Mostly for math, science, and PE classes, none of which I've ever cared about excelling in, but still. Those give your GPA a real hit when you only have six or seven classes a semester. (Okay, not all Ds, but it still looks bad.)

I found my ACT results. Reviewing those numbers, I can't believe the school counselor didn't sit me down and advise me to consider a career in the fast food industry. (Maybe because there wasn't a fast-food industry when I graduated high school?)

I have to admit that I didn't take standardized tests very seriously when I was young. No one ever explained why we had to take them, so I spent, as was my habit during tests, 80% of the time daydreaming and the other 20% of the time filling in whichever categories seemed most interesting.

I have a tendency to glaze over the bad spots in my past. My brain is not built to retain sad or depressing information. For that reason, I was quite surprised to find performance reviews and "official" memos from one of my favorite employers, pointing out a stream of ways in which I was entirely inadeqate to my position. (I'm sure I received other reviews that were less negative but after a certain point, I quit reading those papers.

And today I found yet another photo album full of miscellaneous pictures, all of which would fit neatly into one of the other seven albums I've already organized. At the moment, I'm trying to decide whether I have the strength to go back in and fight the album battle again, or if I'm just going to not care.

Anyhow. So far I've shredded seven boxes full of old papers, gone through seven other boxes of miscellaneous "stuff", carried out 15 bags of trash, accumulated one box full of "perfectly good but I don't want it any more" stuff for Goodwill, and identified three (small) boxes of things that can go back in storage.

I have approximately 15 boxes to go, 10 of which I'm reasonably sure contain all of the books I don't have room for in my bedroom.

One thing I can say for this most recent stint of unemployment--I certainly won't have to think I "wasted" most of my idle time. I've done enough cleaning out and clearing up to hold me for the next year.

Aside from that, I went to Meg's birthday party Saturday evening (she turned 32, I believe) where I got to chat with her and Ruth, another friend I don't get to see as much as I would like.

I had lunch with Meg today as well, which was fun since today is her actual birthday. She treated! I mean, today is her birthday. I should have treated! She said that she makes it a point every year on her birthday to do one act of charity. Taking her unemployed friend to lunch :) was this year's gesture. In any case it was much appreciated. We had coffee at her favorite coffee house, then lunch at a nice, little French café sort of place.

And, finally, yes, I'm still job-hunting. (Or, I should say, hunting again, since I had to hold off for two or three weeks.) I'd like a job. One with a generous, regular paycheck. I find it hard to deal with the idea that books have been published that I have not been able to purchase.

Whenever Buehler decides to pay me for that freelance work I did (which, by the way, I finished in much less time than I anticipated), the $600 is going to come in handy.

I am missing Doctor Who. I must check and see when the new season starts airing.

Torchwood and the new Kelsey Grammer show were the only two new shows I tried this year.

The Kelsey Grammer show was inexcusably bad.

I've also given up on Torchwood. I wanted to like it. Really, I did. I've heard a lot of good buzz about it and I was excited and entirely ready to love it. But I just didn't.

And that's about it.

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P.S. Maybe I should make a new resolution--to stop abusing italics?