Cleaning the Garage

I've spent the last couple of days trying to get my house in order, and I've decided to start with my garage.

I love building and creating things. I always have. But to build and create, you need a clean working space and organized tools. I've never been good at cleaning and organizing, but I go in spurts where I spend hours, days, and weeks cleaning, clearing, and organizing.

Anyway, this would be a lot easier if I was a little more capable of throwing stuff away. In sorting through some of my boxes last night, I found a bunch of old notebooks from high school. I admit that these have been safely stored away in the same exact box since moving out of my parents' house at age 18. I've moved that box to every apartment and house I've lived in since then, never unpacking it or putting those old notebooks away. And yet I can't throw them out.

I know I'm not going to ever use 10th grade Geometry again, but these notebooks are like a work of art to me. I'd spend about 10% of my time transcribing whatever the teacher was talking about, and 90% scribbling in the margins and on the back of the facing page. I'd draw little dancing skeletons, comic book characters whose names I've long forgotten, aliens, monsters, cartoons...

Maybe I should just scan in the best pages and make some sort of anthology and toss the stupid notebooks out. It just breaks my heart.

Anyway, I also found some good, fun stuff like the German magazine I was interviewed in so long ago where I can't read a single word of what it says, the conspiracy book I got while working 3rd shift at Kinko's that I thought I'd lost, old pictures. I'm glad I'm finally unpacking these boxes that haven't been unpacked in 10 years, but I'm not sure I'll be able to toss out those old notebooks.