2001-03-17 - 11:59 p.m.

Papers

Because I just finished a big chess project and I'm currently working on my taxes, the Hamster Palace is currently awash in papers. I really hate the clutter, but I don�t really see what I can do about it just now. The place looks like Godzilla snorted up a paper mill then had a really good sneeze.

My father, even before he became clearly mental, was a terrible packrat. He saved everything. Upstairs at the old family house he had a den and it was literally a silo filled with papers and other junk. As I was growing up, every so often he'd pay me to clean it out. Every time I cleaned his little office, it was a project that would take weeks.

The trouble was that since he saved everything it was hard to tell what was valuable and what wasn't. In one pile I might find some useless old blank tax forms from 1976 and... what's this? Good grief, it's the deed to grandfather's burial plot!!

This became really, really obnoxious when it came time to sell the family house. There were some important papers I needed to find to prove that my father had paid off his first mortgage, and they didn�t seem to be anyplace. I had to search through every pile of papers, every drawer, every cabinet and still they were no place to be found. I finally discovered that due to some sort of mix-up he'd never gotten the paperwork, and of course he didn't notice. Just thinking about the bureaucratic nightmare I had to go through because of this gives me a headache even now, three years later.

I really do not want to end up like him, with piles of useless garbage on every flat surface. I'd like to throw a lot of this clutter away, but because I might actually NEED some of this litter in case I get audited, I have to save it. When you run your own business it's tough to know what paperwork is just garbage and what papers you may actually need at some future date.

That being said I also have saved a lot of stuff as mementos and suchlike. Every time I run across, say, a ticket stub from a concert I attended, I remember all the things that happened at that concert, who I saw it with, etc. But even that can get ridiculous. Eventually my life will be so full of mementos and memories that there will be no room for, well, life!

I was so happy when I moved into the Hamster Palace because finally I had places to put all my stuff and room to spare. However, now the inevitable has occurred and I've run out of room. I can't really blame Lily for this since her stuff takes up so little space. She's as disorganized as me, but she has no problems with throwing stuff out when it has served its useful purpose.

I suppose that I have a hard time throwing things out, because that would be admitting that I am truly done with them. That's the thing I have the most trouble with: letting go of the past. For example, in a cabinet in the library I have a bunch of office supplies that I bought with the intention of making notebooks for my chess openings. This was before I found out about chess database programs which are a MUCH more efficient way of storing that material. So why haven't I thrown out the office supplies, the graph paper and index card boxes? Because I might NEED them someday!

I remember once reading in a book on combating clutter that while you were going through items you weren't using, you should ask yourself the question: "Might I need this someday?" If the answer is yes, you should DEFINITELY throw it out!

All kidding aside, here is a more practical suggestion. If there is a bunch of stuff that you are debating getting rid of but are unsure about, put it in a garbage bag and label the bag with a date. If a year goes by and you haven't had occasion to miss anything in the bag, you can throw it out with a clear conscience.

That sounds like such a good idea. Maybe some day I'll actually do it!

I have to find a happy medium between throwing out everything and, well, being my father.

However, that's a project for another day. Now I have to get back to work on my taxes. Have any of you seen the receipts for my medical bills?