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I cleaned my room today. Well, part of it. I finally moved in a new desk that I've been meaning to replace my old desk with. The old one was covered with old papers, empty beer bottles, and scraps of various packaging materials. This, and the fact that my whole room operates on a sort of feng shui of disaray made the simple switch into a very difficult task.

First, I had to clear a path from the door to the corner where my desk is. This meant finding new places to store all of the scattered items which have found a very convenient existance on my floorspace. My entire floor is my filing cabinet. I have more drawers and shelves than I can count, but most of them are empty. The floor has always seemed like an appropriate place to store things for easy access.

So when I set out to clear a path in the floor, I had to find a new place to file all of my valuable papers, old receipts, books, and discarded napkins. This could prove to be quite tragic, as my memory of their location is rarely altered alongwith their displacement, which can result in frantic searches for random paers that I swore we on a certain spot of carpet last I saw them. Luckily, I was able to find space for all of the relocated items in a very simliar pile across the room. I just hope I have the sense to look through this pile next time I'm looking for an item from the "between the desk and the door" file.

The path being cleared, I first moved my monsterous chair into the next room. Now came the hard part, moving the desk. My old desk was actually two desks put together. They looked about the same: four feet wide, eighteen inches deep with drawers on either side, and a space in the middle that didn't allow enough legroom for any normal human to actually sit at. I put them next to each other at a 90 degree angle in an attempt to create something like a corner desk, but only created an uncomfortable space with even less leg room than either of the original desks.

After I took apart my computer, and moved it various temporary spots throughout my room, I was confronted with the problem of what to do with these large boxy objects that were now of little use to me. I considered leaving them in the living room for awhile, but I have a policy of restricting all apartment mess to my cordoned area. So, I decided to pick up some more of the delicately-arranged mess that was against the walls, slide the desks into the position where the mess once was, and then set the mess back on top of the desks, possibly in a more orderly fashion than before, but more likely only confusing me as to the location of certain items in the future. I succeeded in doing this with one of the desks. The other one however, I had to resort to merely pushing up against the mess, leaving it for another day when I can actually maneuver it all the way in to the corner. As for now, it makes a nice elevated coffetable, and there is more of walkway through my room than when I started this desk-switch project.

My new desk, complete with multi-level keyboard and monitor sections now in place, I'm feeling much more comfortable than before, smooshed into that claustrophobic mess. I can actually see the floor around my desk and all the way to the door too. I suppose there's an aesthetic quality to being able to see one's floor, and I do imagine one day being able to see all of the floor that isn't being used by furniture, but I'm sure I'll start filing things there again pretty soon.