It’s all about accomplishment.

I’m laying low these days. I’m not especially fond of the cold weather, things are tight and there is always a ton to do around the old Fortress of Solitude.

Everywhere I look, I see things that need to be finished.

I keep trying to be better at that, finishing things. It’s not easy either but I keep trying and as long as I keep trying I’m moving in the right direction. And, things are getting done. Things that I have put off literally for years! Things that if done would make life much nicer.

I’m also trying to avoid the excesses of older single bachelordom.

I think if you want to see the two extremes of older single bachelordom you need look no further than Neil Simon’s the Odd Couple. At one pole there is Oscar and at the other is Felix, the trick is being able to fall squarely in the middle of these two very opposing forces.

It’s not as easy as it sounds either.

I’ve seen what is happening to a bunch of different friends I’ve known who have wound up single and getting older. Many times it’s just not pretty there isn’t much other way to put it.

I’ve got a lot of Oscar in me too and that can be quite a problem.

So, over the last weeks, months I’ve been spending considerable time moving the meter back towards the center. Cleaning up, organizing, throwing stuff out, giving stuff away, selling things I no longer have any use for and recently I’m starting to notice a big difference.

And the way I notice it is I find myself smiling.

This past week, I finally installed a light fixture in one of my bathrooms. It doesn’t sound like much but I have to say (shamefully) that for the last bunch of years I had been using a clamp light in the room. I had the fixture, bought it quite a bit of time back but I just never got around to installing it. There always is so much to do when you own a house, especially when you own one like mine. Aside from the mess, the house just has so much work that needs to be done it can be paralyzing.

Everywhere you look something needs to be done, to be repaired, to be cleaned it can overwhelm a person and I have (and do) feel overwhelmed but I seem to be making significant inroads and the more progress I make the better I feel and the better I feel the more I want to do.

This light fixture I was talking about... I had to install a new box first (because the genius who did the wiring before hadn’t) and that took some figuring out to get it done exactly the way I wanted to. After that was done hanging the light at the right spot, centered above the vanity was another issue. It sounds so easy but if you’re going to do there things you want to do a good job – certainly you don’t want to finally get around to finishing something only to stare at a crappy job day in and day out thinking you’ll have to go back and do the job again.

So, I got that done.

If I look at recurring things in my life there are a few I can see in this entry from back in 2010.

First off, the hating of winter, the cold, the fucking snow? That’s been very consistent. I just don’t like it and you would think by now I would have wised up and moved someplace warm already.

The other long running thing is CLUTTER! JUNK! I recently touched on that with another of the finished drafts (and it was posted recently) so there’s little need to belabor the point any further than I already did here.

Finally there’s the projects thing.

I’m pretty handy in a lot of ways. I’ve got all the tools you could need and I even have a bunch of supplies. A few years ago I took the bomb blast that was my garage and got it cleaned up and organized. It was a tremendously satisfying experience and came on the heels of doing the same task for a family friend who took pity on me and had me do it for a couple of bucks during one of those periods when I was slow on the work side.

Odd thing about doing that for her, it was an entirely enjoyable experience for me. First off was because I got to spend time around her which I always enjoy and second just the work itself left me feeling incredibly fulfilled.

Doing it for myself was very satisfying too although I would say I have to get back in there and hit it again even though it’s nowhere near the mess it was when I reworked everything  a couple of years back, I just don’t want it to get to that place again.

I have done some projects around the place but there is always more to do. I’ve gotten big things done over the last few years but these projects can sometimes fall by the wayside. Over pandemic year, it’s interesting the things I have gotten done.

There was a point where I gave the hood over the stove a good scrubbing. It’s such a weird thing to have risen to the top of the list but for some reason it bothered me and was well past time it should be done. In the course of doing it, I discovered the wonder of Baking Soda when it comes to cleaning up anything greasy. I just used that knowledge the other day to clean some caked oil from the underside of a pan.

Anyway, plumbing, electrical, sheetrock, automotive repair, tree work... all these things I’ve done or can do.

At least I know when society breaks down and what I do to earn a living becomes totally useless I’ll have some way to survive.