When Two Become One: Rooms I Mean

It is an intimidating thing to have the rest of your life on your hands.

This is an apprehension I have had since leaving University, where the ever-present, unquestioned cycle of September – June education, that I have been unthinkingly involved in since before I can remember, disappeared. I have discovered that what I do when left to my own devices is astoundingly uninspiring, involving reading, moping and low-level internet symbiosis.

Perhaps the most active I have been since moving back from a student house was when I had to juggle two rooms worth of tat into one room. The cloying sense of pseudo-claustrophobia is perpetual, though it is counterbalanced by my feeling of superiority over these ‘things’. I am the master of this room, I have fastidiously put everything away, and there it will stay. I hope I am able to raise the bar in terms of achievements before I die, as I am loathe to be remembered as the man who was able to fit an excessive amount of needless flotsam and jetsam into his sleeping chambers.

I had a number of mini-epiphanies whilst being the foreman of this gargantuan shuffling project, most of which I am sure will reflect relatively badly on me, or at least highlight some pathetic compulsions and neuroses that impact on my day to day existence.

In order to fit the contents of two rooms into one it is necessary to make material sacrifices, and though I would willingly spill the blood of a small marine type animal in order to have enough space for everything, it was necessary to throw some stuff out. In all honesty, this should have been easy, as there were a number of technological gadgetry type items hidden away in cupboards that, while hipcool in their time, were now ponderously outdated. Looking down into the whimpering displays of three portable Discmans it was extremely difficult to deposit them into the refuse. The particularly pathetic aspect of this tale is that the portable CD players in question were all broken. They were merely totems of a less futuristic time, when going jogging with a portable music device was impossible because even thinking about coughing would cause the device to skip and jump. Strange that this purported step forward from cassettes would make portable music enjoyment more difficult. Is it even possible for cassettes to jump? Regardless, the appearance of the tiny yet mighty iPod now makes all other sort of music enjoyment redundant, and even finding the pathetic remains of my old iPod was a difficult one to part with, even though it too is broken, and has been for years.

Music is a strange thing, with a stereo that plays cassettes, CDs and radio also being relegated to the top of the wardrobe, to gather dust and moth-carcasses until eventually it too is laid to rest in a rotting filth-Valhalla. Who needs a stereo when you have a PS3 which can do all the same things and so much more? (Okay not cassettes).

Another piece of redundant tat that I discovered was a large batch of floppy discs. It is astounding how little memory is on one, where it would now be quite difficult for a disc to store even text based files from up-to-date word processing programs. What is perhaps more astounding is the fact that I have a computer that is capable of reading these discs, though that computer itself only works when the rings of Saturn are parallel to the forest moon of Endor.

I also ended up with a sack full of plugs, which is good because if I ever need plugs then I know where they are.

So after throwing out Discmans and floppy discs, and after meticulously removing painstakingly self-printed inserts from out of jewel cases (also redundant, nobody has noticed yet though), I was starting to feel as though I was essentially throwing memories into the bin. My fragile composure was further tested when I attempted to categorise the items I was tidying away.

Now some things go together perfectly, with very little thought needed; books go together, as do DVDs, CDs etc. Important documents; payslips, bank statements, contracts etc, all go together. Paper, files and stationery also stay together. Things get slightly more complicated as you journey into the land of less symmetrical items.

It is impossible to categorise a roll of wallpaper, an amp and a breadbin satisfactorily. So then they end up with each other, in what it is necessary to unsatisfactorily label a 'misc' section. There’s something about it that makes me angry. Fucking misc.

When I was organising my room I had bought headphones, which, for some reason, had come with a free boomerang. Which raised an interesting question:

How do you classify a boomerang?

It had come with headphones, so perhaps it goes in with music, or perhaps with the amp, or a microphone? Perhaps it is a leisure throwing type item, and goes with kites/Frisbees/Nerf balls (none of which I have), so can it go in with the football or the pump, sporting equipment? Historically a boomerang is a weapon, though I have no other weapons which it could accompany, save perhaps a rounders bat. I ended up just throwing it in the wardrobe and uttering the following curse: Fuck you, Phillips, fuck you. I don’t care if you are Australian, don’t give me useless stuff, I have enough of that as it is. If you wanted to promote your Antipodean heritage you could have sent me a kangaroo or a koala. They would have been easier to categorise (Pets: Kitchen).

Do maracas go in with the bona fide musical equipment?

I can see the guitars laughing at the maracas with their snooty giraffe necks, and I’d hate for the maracas to be bullied. Similarly, a tambourine is just a shaky thing with bells on. But if we’re being reductive, a guitar is just a strummy thing with strings on. Musical politics is tiring.

The advancement of music hearing technology is quite frightening, in terms of its evolution to the point where it is possible, perhaps usual, to have a million and one songs on one small device, making it the musical equivalent of satellite/cable television. Unfortunately it also suffers from the same downside, which is; often there is so much choice to be had, but nothing worth experiencing.

At least with the iPod, it is my fault.