Clean up all the clutter!

I'm reading a book titled Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke. The idea here is that clutter makes you feel like crap. If you throw it out, you feel liberated. A pleasant side effect is that your mind also tends to clean itself up.

I'm totally into cleaning and throwing stuff out. Unfortunately, Cindy's the opposite. She's a bit of a pack rat. Last night I told her I got her a book from the library and I showed it to her. She read the title and laughed at me.

First, I'm amazed that the book is so long: 200 pages. I'm skimming it. Do I really need to read 200 pages of this? Sure, it's a good idea. But a whole book? There were 20 holds on it at the library and Amazon readers give it 4 stars. So apparently it's successful, and needed in the world.

(A side issue: I've noticed a lot of books centred around one, single, common-sensed idea. I don't think this is a great trend. Books should have tons of good and interesting ideas. But I suppose in this day and age of short attention spas, these are the kind of books demanded by consumers.)

Second, the "50 things" actually means "50 groups of things". In other words, you can't just throw out 50 CDs. That only counts as 1 thing.

Finally, I'm still amazed at how much stuff we have in our house. Specifically our basement. I can't believe that that stuff fit in our last (small) apartment in downtown Vancouver. I'm baffled.

This was the most disgusting thing I've seen in my life.

Yesterday was garbage day. It's been hot here, mid 30s all week. I put the garbage out in the shed. The day before I could see some maggots through the garbage bag.

I thought, "What the hell. I'll let the garbage dudes deal with that."

So yesterday I'm taking the garbage out to the driveway.

The garbage bag rips open.

Maggots spill out over my arms and hands. I do the yelp and flinch thing. I knock more maggots onto my body. I brush them off and feel sick to my stomach. I had just eaten breakfast.

Now the garbage needs to be re-tied and there are maggots all over the bag. They're also squirming all over the driveway.

Eventually I tie the bag and go back into the house and wash my hands for 5 minutes. I decide to let the rest of the maggots die and dry up on the driveway. I almost puke.

That's it.