Detox

Gradually, I've been debachelorizing my house. After a dozen years of being a dude who likes to collect stuff but is never home to organize or take care of things, it got out of control. Two Saturdays ago, I decided to take a bunch of old paints, motor oils, used batters, and broken electronic goods to the local toxic waste station.


It's located in an industrial part of Glendale, right next to some train tracks. Is that a coincidence? They probably get buried in New Mexico or somewhere like that, but I suppose that's better than just chucking my stuff into the trash.


When you drive in, there's plastic covering the floor and everyone is wearing popsicle suits--kind of like in Repo Man.


On the way home, I dropped by the janitorial supply store in Los Feliz (right next to the Vista movie theater) to rent a carpet cleaner. My friend Ken was cool enough to help out. I asked him to help me move some furniture, but he wound up staying all afternoon and helping out with cleaning the bedroom carpet.


Below, you can see what the sucked-up water looked like. I think the foam was from the soap--not industrial byproducts, radioactive waste, or bodily fluids.


I dumped it on the grass. I wonder if it will kill or fertilize the lawn?



As the carpet was drying, Wendy's water broke and that's when we had Eloise. Crap! The house was a total mess, with boxes, furniture, and crap all over the place from the carpet cleaning. The two nights after we got back from the hospital, we stayed up late to nurse Eloise and in between feedings, and I busted ass on cleaning up the house past 3:00 a.m. Below, you can see how the living room started out.


Holy crap! Actually, everything was already boxed and once I shaped up the extra room, which is used for storage, a lot of space opened up.


You can actually hang out in the living room now. See the sofa? It used to be in the kitchen because there was no space for it in the living room. Now we can use the kitchen, too.


This is what the storage room looked like. Yikes! It looks like tetanus waiting to happen. Unfortunately, I never got to clean the carpet because there was no place to move its contents while the bedroom was drying.


This is what it looks like now--hopefully more like the last scene from the first Raiders of the Last Ark movie, and less like a junkyard. On the left is CDs and LPs. On the back wall is books with tubs of my non-rotation T-shirts in front of them. The right side has DVDs and Wendy's non-pregnancy clothing. The snowboards/surfboard/sports gear is obvious. (My current skateboards are still by the front door.)



Finally, the bedroom. The bed-sheet curtains are temporary since we're renovating the house sooner than later. Until then, the house is safe for new mother and newborn child, with just a few corners and rooms full of stuff (to move to the storage room) left to work on.

Did I mention that we're going to have a Giant Robot garage sale in the somewhat near future?