Thursday, July 21, 2011

In every to-do list, a few renegade items will invariably band together and refuse to be completed, and just starting them, never mind finishing them, requires a herculean amount of effort. New tasks will come and go, but these holdouts remain rooted on the list for months on end, evergreen in their neglect. I’m certainly guilty of harboring a few of these myself, ranging from changing my air filters to renewing my passport. But the biggest one of them all is making my townhouse presentable.

I could entertain at a moment’s notice, once upon a time. Now, between a pile of computer parts and some boxes my old man dropped off prior to leaving the country, there is work to do. Normal people, for instance, don’t have a motherboard sitting on the coffee table. There’s cleaning to be done, stuff to eBay, desktops to build, clothes to donate, and possessions to discard. None of these tasks are particularly difficult, and the challenge lies in finding the wherewithal to begin.

I’m under no illusions that I’ll be able to cross off any of these to-dos this weekend. A thorough vacuuming, top to bottom, would amount to a room-by-room sweep normally reserved for SWAT personnel, complete with close quarters combat techniques. No, I’ve set the bar much, much lower. If I can accomplish something, anything, I’ll be content. One bag, one box, or one room. All it takes is that one drop-off at Goodwill, and revolution is at hand.