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June 11, 2004

Industrialization of the Household

Sometimes, people who knew me when I worked 20-hour days and lay under my desk dreaming about the code I was going to write will ask me what I do with myself now that I don't work. In between the going to school bit, which they seem to understand, but clearly think of as a form of socially acceptable slacking.

It's hard to explain what I do, mainly because when I'm not in school a lot of what I do involves rearranging things in the house, which seems like ridiculously little on the face of it. Yesterday I moved a huge stack of cardboard from one room to the next, then to another room, then down the hall. Don't janitors do that? Don't we know from high school that janitors can be stoned out of their gourd and still get the job done? How hard is it to move cardboard around?

Actually, it's pretty hard. Last Sunday, Noel put a bunch of audio gear up on eBay, and I blithely offered to pack the things up once my speech class was over. So Thursday morning (I allowed myself one day of rest on Wednesday) I stared at the stack and willed it to be a lot smaller, and when I finished, it was exactly the same size.

Apparently, that is not one of my superpowers.

I had been saving packing supplies for months. Months and months. I had them all over the house. I gathered them together in a gigantic stack in the living room, and sorted them out: styrofoam peanuts, styrofoam sheets, air sacks, shredded newspaper, newsprint paper. I taped up a box. I arranged packing materials on the bottom, then set the component in it, then filled it up. Taped up the box. Realized I'd forgotten what I put in there. Cut open the box, checked item again, and taped it back up. Wrote the item name on the box. Set it in the front bay.

I did this twelve times over, then packaged up assorted other items that we'd decided to ship. I used up all our packing supplies. And in the end, this is what I had:

The Leaning Tower of Synth Gear. Simply stunning.

And now we have to weigh and actually ship them all.

Posted by ayse on 06/11/04 at 6:20 PM