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Staying in and hoping for the plumber to come round, I had made vague and grunting efforts to clear a little space around the places he'll most likely need to work; and then there was a knock on the door, and I went in hopes to answer it, and no. Not the plumber, but the man who reads the meters. An odd man, and one who promptly trod on Barry; but it really wasn't his fault (the most common phrase in this house is "will you get out from under my auuurgh...!", with associated clatter & breakage & indignant squawks)(sorry, second most common. The most common, of course, as per yesterday, is "not your teatime!"). And then I had somehow to find him a route through to the meters, which are in the back of the cupboard under the stairs, which is of course entirely full of everything I can fit chuck in there. It's all calamity, and I really really ought to sort this house out. Bit by bit, that's fine, but even bit-by-bit doesn't happen unless you actually do bits. And any time I think to start, I'm always baffled, because I can't do the thing I want done without doing something else first, and I can't do that without doing something else, and...
What I really need to do, obviously, is find the end of the tangle of string, the first bit that I have to do before I can do the next bit. Or, possibly, get someone(s) round to help. Bribe 'em with dinner, and make 'em work all afternoon for it. (In honesty, I am not quite as baffled as I pretend: I do know that sorting out downstairs is impossible until I have sorted the office upstairs, because downstairs is still full of bits of disassembled bookshelf, and the office walls are all that's left to shelve. But the office is v scary to tackle on my own, almost unmanageable. Is this actually what friends are for, or am I being exploitative...? I almost never see my friends, except when asking them to do stuff for me. But then I can't have them round until this stuff is done, because the house is impossible at the moment. And I can't take them out, because they have money and I don't. Etc.)
What I really need to do, obviously, is find the end of the tangle of string, the first bit that I have to do before I can do the next bit. Or, possibly, get someone(s) round to help. Bribe 'em with dinner, and make 'em work all afternoon for it. (In honesty, I am not quite as baffled as I pretend: I do know that sorting out downstairs is impossible until I have sorted the office upstairs, because downstairs is still full of bits of disassembled bookshelf, and the office walls are all that's left to shelve. But the office is v scary to tackle on my own, almost unmanageable. Is this actually what friends are for, or am I being exploitative...? I almost never see my friends, except when asking them to do stuff for me. But then I can't have them round until this stuff is done, because the house is impossible at the moment. And I can't take them out, because they have money and I don't. Etc.)