Still wishin' I were anywhere but here! I walked into the office this morning and my nostrils were assaulted by a really noxious aroma. No one seemed to know what it was, so one of the managers called the non-emergency number for the fire department. They ordered us to evacuate while they got some people over here to check it out. It turned out to be paint thinner; the building management had people painting the elevator last night. To add injury to injury, they started painting again in the common areas late this morning. So my chest is burning and I've got a rip-roaring headache. One wonders (actually, more than one wonders--I've had multiple people stop into my office to wonder) why they didn't do the painting on Saturday, when the building would be empty for three days. And of course our company can't allow us to go home! It's month-end AND it's December. December, for those of you who don't know, is never a good month for collections. December is the month when people would rather buy Christmas presents than pay their bills. So here I sit, trying to keep busy (I'm not a collector--I'm an admin assistant) and trying not to puke from the fumes.

But hey, three-day weekend coming up, always a good thing. And it's the last holiday weekend until Memorial Day, so I really need to enjoy it. I'm going to do some shopping tomorrow morning. And Liz and I have been planning for 6 weeks at least to go to a movie, and we keep putting it off. So we're going to a movie tomorrow, dangit, no matter what! And then I'll go back home and do laundry until I drop.

You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? You don't believe that a fully grown woman (I was about to say fully grown mountain troll, because I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone last night) could really and truly procrastinate her laundry until she has as much laundry as I tell you that I have. You don't really believe that a responsible mature person could get by only washing enough underwear and wearing the lightly dirtied clothes so that she has huge and enormous piles of laundry, huh? Pardon me while I laugh hysterically.

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Okay. I'm back. See, part of the problem is due to the fact that our house is laid out rather weirdly. The washing machine is in the kitchen. The dryer is in the room that used to be the garage but is now in the room we optimistically call the music room, but is really the hell room (don't know what the hell to do with something? Throw it in there). The other part of the problem is due to the fact that our house is hugely cluttered. That's not news to you, as I talk about this problem frequently. Joe has a lot of stuff piled up that blocks the way into the hell room. That means that it is virtually impossible for me to get a load of wet clothes from the washer into the dryer. If Joe's around, he'll do it for me. If not, then I don't mess with it. I'd rather not break my leg and have to call 911--the paramedics would tell everyone they know how messy my house was! So yeah, doing laundry is a huge hassle, which is why I have tons of laundry to do.

Yesterday Joe dismantled the daybed in the Egypt room and put the futon in there. I am happy with that change. I spent 4 hours in there yesterday moving furniture, throwing out trash, throwing dog toys in the hall (and how many toys does one dog need, anyway? She's got more toys than some people's kids have!), throwing dirty clothes into the hall, sorting through papers to see what was trash and what needed to be saved (and much more of it was trash than I realized), etc. So have you ever seen those huge contractor's trash bags? They're almost as tall as I am, and as big around as a regular black leaf-sized trash bag. Well, I have two of those full of dirty clothes that I have to wash this weekend. I would estimate that of those two bags of dirty clothes, at least half of them are too big for me, which means that some of them will go to my friend and the rest will go into storage. That means that half of those clothes are getting out of my house. That means less clutter.

Okay, yeah, I bought two shirts today during lunch at Target, but I'm still on the positive side here. One huge ginormous trash bag out, two tiny shirts in. And hey, the shirts were purchased in the Misses' section, NOT in the Women's section!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I also took those handbags I'm getting rid of and put them in my car. I'll stop by the Goodwill drop-off on my way home from work today, and get them out of my life forever. Whee! See? Another big bag of clutter out of the house! And I found the three drastically overdue library books and they're also in my car and are going back to the library today. And I'm never going to a library again. Never. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever again. Never. As in, if I ever tell you I'm going to a library, stop me, with force if necessary. Don't let me do it. That is all.