...and the dustbunnies shall inherit the earth....

Whoa, Nelly. I've had a slow-simmering desire to overhaul the ol' apartment and each weekend I've made a special effort to pitch...something...anything. I definitely fall into the category of "packrat who wishes she were a minimalist" and though I resolve in my head to throw out anything that I know I've not looked at in over a year (of which there is MUCH crammed into my 500-or-so-square-footed place), without fail I, er, fail to manage it. Instead, I resolutely look at every single piece of paper, every gee-gaw or whatsitfer before chucking it, or placing it in the Pile of Shame, which then needs to be sorted into some kind of storage receptacle where it will languish until my next pitching fit eight years or so hence.

My latest inspiration is to get rid of my desk, which I have never really used as a desk and is instead a laundry organizer on the desktop, a piles-of-paper-crap supporter in the hutch, and is a sweater shelf atop the hutch -- home to at least 20 sweaters, piled on high in a princess-and-the-pea-worthy fashion, and may even contain a moth or two. I have found a suitably overachieving but cheap replacement which is actually meant for clothes: a high dresser from IKEA that I wouldn't mind using for other sorts of storage should I ever manage to leave my 500-or-so-square-footed apartment and move into a sprawling suburban condo or somesuch dream/nightmare.

In my effort to unearth the gently-used desk from its paper and cashmere trappings so that I might pretty it up for Craigslist, I have discovered something most unsettling: my bedroom is inhabited by dustbunnies. I do clean, mind you, and I have a rather large air filter running at all times in that room to keep the kitty litter dust under control and to serve as white noise to drown out the thundering footsteps of my neighbors above (who seem to find it great fun to leap in and out of bed at 2 in the morning) . So I was rather upset to find a dustbunny infestation. Without doubt my allergist would likely be upset on my behalf, too (he who convinced me I need to add a dehumidifier to my bedroom inhabitants...anyone else want to move in, too?