New Year

Some time ago, I thought to write about distraction.  I remember that, but I can't find the post.  I get distracted, I guess.  That is what we do.  I get up in the darkness before dawn and read the internet news and surf other sites--too many of them--rather than sit with myself in the blackness.  Maybe if I did that, if I just sat rather than turning on the computer, I'd sleep.  I may try that.  I may not allow myself to check the news until after sunrise, may not allow myself to turn on the computer.  It sounds awful enough that it might be worthwhile.  I'll get back to you on that.  

But that is not the sort of distraction I was going to write about exactly.  It was about the things I do to keep myself from thinking about all the things I have to do.  Too many things.  Too many distractions.  

But Pico Iyer wrote something for today's N.Y. Times about this.  That is why I thought of it this morning.  You can read about it here (source).  

I stayed home last night.  A friend called and wondered if I was going out for drinks.  No, I told him.  I was tired.  From what?  Nothing in particular.  Living, I guess.  I've spent two days trying to clean up a single room in my house, but more than that, to catalogue and and clean up my digital file mess.  I've been  collecting them from various hard drives and putting them in two places that I will back up with BIG terabyte drives next week.  I leave the computer running for hours at a time transferring information from one place to another.  I now have a consolidated music library.  But it is the photo files that is taking up all the time and space.  And it isn't just digital.  Archived in sealed storage portfolios, the Polaroids from the Lonesomeville project alone take up 43.2 square feet of space.  Then there are many, many notebooks of film negatives and slides and boxes and boxes of prints.  I don't know what to do with them all.  Most of the stuff has been unlabeled.  No longer.  I've archived them, too.  Now it is a matter of buying storage shelves.  But it is a new year and this is done.  

More maintenance and organization is yet to come.  But I must hurry.  I return to the factory in a few days, and that promotes personal chaos.  It steals and corrupts.  The Organization.  It is the Devil.  

And while I do not know exactly what the day means, I read the news and saw the manic faces around the planet as they zealously welcomed the New Year.  So, for whatever it's worth, I wish you a Happy New Year and hope that it brings you everything you want.  

Just be careful what you want.