A sale of 4 big pieces of office furniture I didn’t like should still be making me happy, but elation disappears fast these days. But the IKEA monstrosities are gone, thank goodness. They were pressed wood and one tall cabinet was so heavy that if I were moving out, I would’ve had to take it completely apart, which because of their elaborate construction, is a real pain.

The man who wanted them (all the pieces match, and were a nice color) moved them all by himself into a truck — no taking apart anything, either. Amazing. (He’s no spring chicken, either. Why is it men don’t worry about injuring themselves?) Now I still have all kinds of stuff that is sitting on the floor in each room that I took out of the cabinets, bookcase, file drawer. To hold this stuff I’m bringing old pine shelving (also Ikea, but real wood) up from the basement and will paint it. These shelves can come apart easily and can fit in my car. Also they weigh about a million pounds less.

The guy is still interested in buying a table and possibly another tall bookcase. This is great! So much furniture will be leaving. My house has held the remnants of two sizable apartments and two old workshop/offices, also big. I really don’t know how so much furniture was crammed in here. My storage units still hold a lot of the wood shelving parts, though.

In my back room I made myself actually see what was there. You sort of blind yourself to things you don’t want to deal with. And yes, I should get rid of the enormous CRT monitor sitting on the table. If I could move it. When it was bought, the total weight of the closed box was 98 pounds. I’ve never seen a larger one.

Maybe by the middle of summer, I’ll have reduced my surroundings to a level I like. I dream someday of living in a tiny cabin with hardly any furniture. Like an Eskimo: Everything's handy and there isn't much, they turn around and grab their spear off the wall, then turn back around and there’s their snow bed, and next to that, the front door. They’re ready to go out and hunt breakfast.