short-term money
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June 1, 10 A.M.: Two Big Things happening here today. I have already spent an hour at Paint Shop on the new computer, which is to be dedicated (almost entirly) to Paint Shop. I'm doing tedious work smoothing "The Arrival of a Quotient" a pixel or two at a time, and repouring colors to get them denser (or so I think I'm doing). Slow, slow work that I can't do for long--but there's the sweeper's pleasure in it--the satisfaction of getting every little bit of dirt or dust off the floor.
The second Big Thing is that I've begun on yet another attempt to Put Mine House in Order. So far I've concentrated on my side-table, the small table I have on my left in my computer work area. It generally holds months or years of mail, Internet/e.mail print-outs, books and magazines, rough drafts, notes, all kinds of things such as this:
My cat bats my pen
as I try to write my sister
about Mother's cancer.
That's from 1989 (slightly revised to reduce the syllable-count). It's a satire, folks, an attempt to compose an Absolutely Standard Establishment Haiku Prize-Winner.
After two hours clearing the side-table of material mainly from the past three months (I don't know how the 1989 scrap got into the mix), it has nothing on it but my new computer, my telephone, filled CD and floppie storage bins lining the rear--and a shallow box containing most of the junk previously on the table's surface. Next chore is to take care of the stuff in the box.
I have put a lot of stuff in better places than the shallow box, and finding good new places for them. A new carton for obsolete rough drafts, for instance, and a very large long-unused carton to put the rough-draft carton at the bottom of, leaving space for one or two cartons on top of it. Labeled! Something I don't do enough but did this time. Also a file folder in one of my filing cabinets for items having to do with my Schoolwide Blog--notes, and books and old essays I plan to quote from. Another labeled "Current Projects" in the same drawer of the same filing cabinet.
Other stuff had places to go into, like my plastic storage container for genealogical matter. And I was able to throw a few things away. Now I'm all tuckered out, so plan to try for a nap as soon as I get this posted.
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