I've spent much of the last two weekends hauling junk from our house to the county "transfer station" (which is a fancy way of saying "we don't have a landfill, but you can dump your crap here"). Three Toyota Highlanders worth of junk hauled, to be specific.

I tossed most of my college writings (a quick perusal convinced me that this was easily the wisest course of action), a couple dozen empty boxes, three mattresses, two computers, a monitor, a printer, and more assorted junk than you can imagine. Not all of this went into the trash; in fact, most of it was recycled one way or another. We're one of those counties that recycles almost everything, and I'm fine with that. The transfer station is full service for both trash and recycling, so I could do both in one trip. Or, y'know, three.

The main purpose for all this purging is to move my office out of the basement so that we can have something of a family room down there. The family room part is pretty well set. But moving my office has set in motion of series of other moves, and we're still working out those details. My wife still hasn't quite agreed to the location and nature of my "office" (which will occupy a small part of a small room, most likely), but we're getting there. And in any case, the basement has been almost completely cleared.

Except for the CDs.

I've got a lot of CDs. And they're going from the basement to the attic. Moving 9,000 or so CDs up three flights of stairs (the last flight being pull-down) is a rough task. Many might ask why I don't simply burn the CDs into a hard drive and get rid of them. That's easy. My music collection comprises 460 gigs and has melted five hard drives (so far). And while I have been able to salvage the files before ultimate disaster struck each time, I don't trust hard drives. I want backup.

So I'm keeping the CDs and moving them upstairs. And once the CDs are moved up, then we will likely move some bookshelves downstairs (though this, too, is under negotiation). There is a tentative plan to get some new, modestly snazzier bookshelves for the living room. And maybe some sort of china cabinet for the dining room, so that we can actually store all of our dishes (we've just got the one set of stoneware, but we also have very little cabinet space) in the same place.

My wife believes that all of the problems we are (potentially) solving with this series of purges come from having too much shit. And there were the three Toyota Highlanders worth of shit that fully support her position. On the other hand, most of our shit by weight consists of books and CDs. And the books and CDs are organized exceptionally well. I may not be Mr. Neat, but if you want to find a given book or piece of music, I can get it for you in a minute.

Yes, I'm a bit defensive about these things. Sue me. In any case, I'd like to think that I'm doing my part to keep the general level of shit in our house to a tolerable level. And I also like to think that books and CDs don't count as "shit" under any circumstances (of course, I don't own any Fiona Apple albums, so I'm in a solid place to make that argument).

What I'm also sure about is that I'm sore. I made 24 trips up three flights of stairs yesterday, and I've got another 24 trip to go. My wife made me stop late yesterday afternoon, saying "You look like you're about to die." I'd already decided to quit for the day, but she was right. I not only looked like red-hot death, I felt that way as well. I'm in pretty good shape, but hauling 30-to-40 pound storage boxes of CDs up three flights of stairs is a pretty solid aerobic workout. I think I sweated off five pounds. And my body is pretty much refusing to do much of anything today, but that will pass. I mean, I'm only 42. I ought to be able to lift a pot holder by Wednesday.

So. Shit has been removed. Living spaces have been cleared and improved. Life is, well, much as it was, if slightly neater and more organized. Which is good.

I think.

Jon Worley keeps his 9000+ CDs in alphabetical order.