One week ago I decided I had had enough of living the pandemic lifestyle. In my case, this meant pushing past the clutter that I had somehow become accustomed to around me. The issue is a simple one (“just clean up!”) wrapped up in complicated situations. For example: my desk in my home office. 

My desk has always been lightly cluttered with active projects, but these elements flow through like a well oiled machine. With the pandemic putting things on pause, however, these “elements” became “elephants” in the room. There was a box of radios sitting next to my desk. Not a small box, but a large hefty box of walkie-talkies. These were purchased back in December during an online sale with the plan of moving them to the company storage unit for use at WasabiCon 2020.

Well, I haven’t been to that storage unit all year and – spoiler alert – WasabiCon 2020 didn’t happen. 

Now, take that tale of accidental clutter and amplify it by a hundred. Things land on my desk with the expectation of disappearing the next time I go on the road for work. The thing is: I haven’t really gone anywhere. The last time I was in an airport was January 6, 2020 and any trips I’ve taken by car since then have been designed to minimize my exposure to as few places as possible. Why? Because the pandemic isn’t over just because you’re over it. 

Which brings me back to one week ago. My wonderful wife was slated to stay home from work for a week (her office had to close temporarily) and help me get things organized again… but where to begin?

Shannon was at her sister’s doing laundry and, left to my own devices, I decided to start simple: I needed a haircut. I’m not a hundred percent positive, but I’m fairly certain that my last haircut was sometime in December of last year. It may have been longer than that, though.

I grabbed a tripod, my iPhone, and my electric razor and sat down in the shower. And did this.

Buzzing off my own hair seemed like the easiest solution and eliminated the need to sit in a stylist’s chair hopeful that the person doing the cutting has been cautious about COVID-19. The last time I had hair this short was the summer of 1988. I had done some CRAZY dying to my hair in eighth grade and, having just moved to Florida for high school, my parents wanted me to make a good impression… by cutting all the color out.

Cool. So now I don’t have to worry about brushing my hair for the time being. Next up was our domicile which had a lot of loose ends in need of correcting. New shelf and hangers in the bathroom? Done. Extra hanging rods for Shannon’s race medals? Completed. Replace the UPS unit in the entertainment center? Finished. Patched holes, replaced door knobs, and touch up paint around the place? All taken care of.

The last challenge was my desk and it took LITERAL days. Things were put in storage. My office was rewired to support streaming more regularly. I scanned and archived hundreds of documents, backed up thousands of old photos, and even found time to rip a couple of old DVDs so I could finally throw away the originals. It was a mountain of mayhem that is now, magically, mischief managed.

I feel like I can breathe again.

So what next? Today I’ll be setting up a pattern again to help get things moving forward.

• Exercise. This has been a challenge since the accident, but my arm seems much more stable now.
• Blogging. I mean, here we are now, right?
• Work. I’m always working, but I get more done when I have a plan and a (gasp!) checklist.
• Storage Unit. This has been a bane of my existence for over five years. It’s time to make things disappear. Hello there, eBay.

There’s a myriad of sub-projects that integrate into all of those: finish a couple of books I’ve been reading; finish a few video games; catch up on that Best Picture project.

But you’ve got to start somewhere, and I opted to do so with a haircut and blog post.

Here we go.