First I Binged, and Now I’ve Purged

I’m happy to report that “The Great Clean-up of 2006” continued this weekend.

It was a big day of purging yesterday — and of realizing just how much of a packrat I am, and of rediscovering some stuff I haven’t seen in years and was truly baffled that I’ve hung onto for so long.

For example:

* Posters, like the promotional one for season two of Dawson’s Creek. Or the one for the movie Shine, which I bought when I first moved to Boston in 1997, and haven’t seen since I moved out of that first apartment in September, 1998. I threw out the ones for the 1999 MLB All-Star Game (I already have one framed and hanging on a wall) and Dead Poets Society, among others, but I saved the one for Toy Story — and of course, my prized poster-sized Friends Rolling Stone cover.

* Self-assembled crate/building block thingees, which I hadn’t used in at least five years.

* Pictures, and other miscellaneous stuff in box frames, such as the nice candids of me and two (unrequited) crushes I had in college (AM and RM, if you must know), or the blown-up color copy of the Ally McBeal TV Guide cover, or the stills of Wallace & Gromit and the black-and-white one of the cast of Friends (circa fall 1994). Perhaps the best of these was a caricature of myself that was done in October 1993 that didn’t even really look like me.

* Birthday cards

* A husband pillow. You know, one of those things you use to sit up straight when you’re sitting on your bed. Haven’t used it in at least five years.

* Postcards I never sent and other crap (i.e.: brochures, boarding passes, etc.) from my trip to Los Angeles in August, 2002.

* Fish-themed lighting decorations from a party I threw when I turned 28 (i.e: 3.5 years ago)

And that’s only some of it. When I was all done, I had four bags of trash and three ready to go to the Salvation Army or somewhere like that. Oh, and since I had disconnected my VCR a couple months back, I also went through my VHS tape collection to make room for the DVDs that were stacked on my floor. Many of the tapes were movies I own now on DVD, so I brought all of those in to work today to give out to whoever wanted them. Others I’ve saved because, well, you never know.

Next step is either my clothes closet or my books and CDs. I think I’m in denial about my kitchen table and all the bills and mail and other stuff that’s stacked up there, teetering over every so often. I’ll get to that eventually.

Point of all this is just to pat myself on the back publicly for keeping up with this cleaning and purging.

I’m damned happy with myself for doing it.