I can see some of the Abyss floor. It must be announced.

So I decided today while at work that I had two choices for tonight: hide under the covers with the Black Dahlia book I’m reading or do /something/ about the crazy mess in the Abyss. Frankly the mess does nothing for me except make me claustrophobic and I hate the wasted space, so into the Abyss it would be.

Of course, I knew I’d need to bribe myself sufficiently so I picked up take-out on the way home as fortification (this also removed the necessary obstacle that would have been cooking dinner, thus taking up to much precious tackle-time). First on the list after dinner was putting the old table and chairs into the car, forcing me to take them to Goodwill tomorrow during lunch and getting them the hell-up out of the Abyss. Honestly things were looking somewhat civilized in there until I needed to put the chairs some place when I put up the new IKEA set.

That was when I saw it: proof that someone had been in my home. Gasp!

Now, living in an apartment complex with a maintenance staff means that there are certain other people with access to the insides of my home for various reasons (repairs, pest control, etc.). And, yes, when I signed the new lease this past weekend I did ask (again) about the Abyss door which has had a hole punched through it for the whole two years I’ve lived here (the original replacement was the wrong size and I guess no one ever followed up on it though I know I asked about it a few times). Furthermore, one more reason for my need to tackle the Abyss is that persons unknown would be subjected to it in order to eventually fix said door (hope spring eternal).

But I didn’t expect it to happen today!!!

No, the door still shows evidence of violence and now has a new hole where they took out the doorknob. The doorknob assembly leaning against my old Olympus typewriter being what clued me in that all was /not/ as I’d left it. (No, it was not that the things usually kept behind the Abyss door were now in /front/ of the Bureau of Fabric–yes the clutter is so bad that both table leaves, the slacker chair, a plastic shlef and the bed frame box being newly visible was not enough to alert me; does this give you an idea of the level of issues this room has?)

Still, I was already on a mission so the table top, leaves, legs and 3 chairs: into the car they went. After that I was a bit confused as to what to tackle next–there was just so much stuff everywhere. So I did the most logical thing. I hung up the dragon hanging organizer from IKEA over the folding closet door. At some point I’m sure I’ll actually store stuff in it, but for now it’s menacing flames are pointed towards the windows just in case someone gets a funny idea.

Next was the fabric. Oh my do I have a lot of fabric. The Bureau of Fabric? filled to the gills. But I did have a spare long tote that was hanging out empty (what I used for camping storage before I got the deep blue ones for Gulf Wars. Into the tote went a good bit of the fabric worth keeping (I had some tiny scraps that just went away-away) and then what to do with the tote: hah! under the bed it went (mostly willingly). Then I discovered the top-most tote in the craft closet was only about half full so more fabric when into it. Of course, I tried to be smooth and set the lid beside the tote, resting on the lid beneath it. This was stupid as it promptly slid down along the wall to the bottom corner of the closet. It can stay there, too, as having no lid meant I could pile the remaining fabric on top of the full tote for now. Serendipity! (I meant to do that, honest.)

I then took a nostalgia break and flipped through the 5 years of Latin scrapbooks the Bun offloaded to me a couple years ago. Some people’s Myspace pages will be eventually hit with high school photos, oh yes they will! I also managed to impale my left hand on a loose peace of hardware on the first book but at least I know when my last tetanus shot was! (two weeks ago Friday morning and the swelling finally went down last week)

Now I will say that the fabric and the excess furniture piled up, now being out of sight, makes a HUGINORMOUS difference in the room. I mean, there’s still beau coup stuff to be sorted and such in the rest of the room, but there is a serious amount of floor visible in all its beigeness. And and AND… my workstation desk with the tilted worsurface? Visible, accessible, and clear. I can see moving the Random Acts… stuff from the kitchen table to this workstation verra verra soon. How much do I rock?

A lot, I’d say. You would too had the progress been visible. I bet the maintenance guys will be impressed, too, if they ever actually come back…