(no subject)

I got up early today and applied myself to the task of cleaning up and out my room in The House. I'm only maybe a third done and I've already filled up 2 trash bags and a fairly sizable box with trash and paper recycling. I guess I've been something of a pack rat in the past as well, but my mother had such a pervasive mentality of DON'T THROW ANYTHING AWAY ZOMG that one tended to pick up her tendancy to squirreling things away into tins, boxes, drawers, plastic cups, behind bookcases and in myriad plastic bags full of mysterious contents.

It hasn't all been trash though. I found a treasure trove of late 80s/early 90s era Apple paperbacks (ahh, scholastic book club - just grooming your young female readers for a lifetime of Harlequin romances, eh?) including a couple of slim volumes i thought had been lost to the vagaries of Smith and a third of my Baby-sitters Club collection. (Stop laughing, I'm now trying to figure out what happened to the other 2/3rds.) I also found the first or second edition hardback books that went with my American Girl dolls. I'm probably going to keep the Samantha ones, since I have all six in the slipcase plus I hate the illustrations in the later editions, but considering I don't have a complete collection of either Kirsten or Molly, I'm going to check out how much I can get for them on eBay and replace them with later editions if at all, since I have a thing about having all the books in a series match. Also found a stack of catalogs from when American Girl was still Pleasant Company. Still have yet to find my actual dolls though. Crud.

What else have I found... about three dollars in change, pictures a go-go (I also seem to have inherited my mother's habit of chucking pictures into any available drawer) the entire set of manuals from my 1995 IBM Aptiva (aka Master Freak) plus his original Mwave card (cause that was a fabulous idea, combining the sound card and the modem). Legos like whoa. Half started stories, notes passed in college between myself and various friends, several drafts of that blatently sexual epic poem I wrote for sundart back in first year (I suck at poetry, WTFBBQ), quite a few 1980s era Crayola Crayons (hooray for raw umber, much lols about indian red, though I think I remember reading somewhere that the name wasn't referring to native americans at all at first, just some dumbass not thinking about it correctly before naming the color... course it took them until the early 90s to retire it), a plastic bag full of antique silver knickknacks, jewelry and thingamabobs worthy of harmonhay's attention that I intend to go after with a rag and some Silvo later, a draft of Go Figure Boys (harinezumi, you'd best be giggling) which actually isn't quite as bad as I though upon reread - I might hunt up the file on my computer and edit it down a bit again, like I do every three years or so, who knows, maybe it'll end up as an Apple paperback, ha. Which was really always the intention - I didn't aspire much higher than Scholastic Books when I was about 14. ;) I also found a playbill, collector's book and postcards from the original Broadway run of The Secret Garden. Man, it's a serious trip seeing a young, pre-Hedwig John Cameron Mitchell in period clothing, lemme tell ya.

Mostly it's been dusty, gross work though. My hands are seriously grimy after much of today pawing through drawers that haven't been opened in half a decade and shelving books on bookcases festooned with a thick layer of dust. I'm absolutely terrified by the state of the carpet as well, and will probably haul up the old Kirby to give it a once over before I leave. And I did mention that I've only gotten about 1/3 of the way through, and that isn't covering the shadowy creepiness that is under the bed. Not to mention I've already found scads of stuff to put up on eBay, 'course I have to stop thinking that x thing is a blue or a green level item... no epics yet, LOL.

Hey, syd, do you want my old step aerobics video/step set? If I recall correctly, 1992 era aerobics fashion is just as hilarious as 1980s era aerobics fashion, but it was actually a pretty good workout.

Well, back to the grind. :P Sheesh, if my barely occupied room is this much of a trap of terrifying junk and occasional treasure, I shudder to think of what'll happen when I get to the rest of the house. O_o

Multimedia message

Livejournal, meet The House.





House, Livejournal.

Hex's last huzzah

( behind this cut is my one and only foray into cosplay )

I'm amazed that thing still sorta fit. This my friends, was the cowl and shirt half of the Hexadecimal costume I made for Halloween 1995, the result of spending my a week's worth of nights beforehand in burgundy lame and puffy paint, cardboard, and so. much. gold. glitter. The full costume featured elbow length black gloves and some seriously thick white greaspaint for Hex's mask (and even after wearing that all day my face didn't break out, much to various people's discomfiture/amazement... took an hour to get it all off that night tho.)

I felt like putting it on one last time before ditching it, hence the picture. :) I have some better ideas as to how to make this costume again should I want/need to. Next time around it will involve knee length heeled boots and probably a catsuit. Oh and no more lame. That stuff doesn't breathe. Yick.

The room, save for under the bed, is approaching done, everything's been emptied, cleaned out, and sorted into piles of stuff to keep and stuff to take down to the curb/Goodwill. So far we're up to two boxes of paper recycling, 3 bags of goodwill and 6-7 bags of trash. Again, this is just my room! The last challenge is getting under the bed and sorting through the stuff I decided was keepworthy and putting it away. In the meantime the block is still police taped off from this evening's excitement, and I'm rather enjoying running downstairs with updates for Dad from the local news affiliate web sites, cause the story gets more gifuh-worthy at every incarnation.

Never boring in the city.