I totally had this book. and it taught me nothing.

I spend a good amount of time wishing I were someone else.  Or maybe not a fully different person with a different apartment, family, jobs, etc., but wishing I could be better.  I daydream about being the kind of person who folds her clothes as she changes out of them every time, who is bothered by the clutter on her desk at work.  In short, I wish I gave enough of a shit to put in the effort to live the way I’d like to: neatly.  I wish I were neater.  I live in an endless state of clutter.  Now and then I say I’m going to change and that now is my chance to really change my habits.

At this very moment, my desk is covered with (among other things): two chops I got in China with my name on them, a journal I sketch animals in, a pair of sunglasses, my digital camera, a postit pad I got as swag at ComicCon, a book on ancient Akkadian, a pair of earrings, two empty boxes for holding glasses, two piggy banks (although only one is shaped like a pig), a plastic chibi figurine of Kakashi from Naruto, two plastic cats (one is asleep in a bucket), five Beastlies, a tachicoma, a small bowl of vitamins I’ve stopped taking, a stamp with two concentric circles (to see if I’ll get that tattoo), a script (Buffy I think?), a few hair ties, a flash drive, an old bluetooth earpiece, a couple of business cards, first class stamps (with the liberty bell on them), two old beads (one lapis lazuli, and one citrine), three pencils and two erasers.

The rest of my room has two obsolete lcd monitors, two old towers, my painted helmet, an acoustic guitar I bought years ago but never played, my old bed spread (trash), enough clothes to almost hide the leather chair, Boyfriend’s vacuum, old cds, obsolete wires for various electronics, and an old purse.

Why don’t I just throw this stuff away?  Because I’m always too busy enjoying myself.  I’m writing blog posts, or watching anime (just this afternoon I sat down and watched The Secret of Kells, and it was totally worth it).  I’m reading a book, or spending time playing board games with friends.  I’m at Boyfriend’s place killing zobos or having a lovely meal.  I spend my time wishing I could be someone who cleans up after herself all the time, but I look around my room with a kind of affectionate disgust.  I see, through the mess, three full bookshelves, an antler I found in a dried-up riverbed near Lake Echo in Tasmania, my parents’ old elephant bookends, my grandmother’s tiny salt and pepper shakers, a hutch my father build with his own hands in our old garage, a hairy rug with a sleepy cat on it.  I see a desk covered in memories (that clay whistle shaped like a bird I was given as a gift in the Apuseni Mountains of Romania, that small bronze statue of the bathing woman my parents gave me so thoughtfully, that mousepad printed with a painting by Rousseau that my parents used to have at their apartment in Beverly Hills).  I see my old things like an old dog that walks beside me, licking my hand occasionally, reminding me of that time when…

But I won’t pretend that neglecting to tidy up is the mature thing to do.  I’m a child, I guess.  I’d just rather be outside playing than cleaning up my room.