Seize the Storage Update, plus 7/27 Friday Early Morning Sunrise Swim and Wedding

Photo from a wonderful morning in July, just before the point when Project Seize the Summer got overrun by Project Seize the Space. More photos on Flickr. 

Project Seize the Space is moving along, I have now officially passed the aggravating zenith of chaos and am progressing towards order. Max chaos was reached on Sunday when I had TQ coming over the next day to help me move a couple of pieces of furniture around to make space for the fantastic real live full-sized totally affordable secondhand bookshelf he'd helped me acquire and bring home the week before. I'd already been pulling stuff out of closets and sorting before putting things away - was mostly still in sorting phase so there was already lot of extra clutter in addition to the usual piles of books in the corners (I call them "bookdrifts", books follow me home and they just seem to collect like snowdrifts in the wintertime) and yet-to-be-sorted bills and stuff.

Hooray for a real bookcase!  

I've been wanting a full-sized bookcase for ages because I just didn't have enough shelves for the books I have, so I was just delighted to find just the bookcase I'd pictured at the antique and secondhand store where he'd gotten some things to furnish his place when he moved to NYC. I hadn't completely decided where to put it when we brought it home, so it landed in the foyer for a week. The 2 pieces of furniture I wanted to move on Monday were a mid-sized bookshelf and a secretary desk with 3 shelves in the base. Those were both fully loaded with books so after TQ and I taught Quick Start Level 2 at Sebago on Sunday morning, I went home and emptied those onto the floor and the bed, and then, with 80% of my library unshelved and sitting in piles and the closets turned inside out, I literally cleared flight paths for the Monday furniture moving. Thankfully TQ was OK with me coming over for the night as at that point the chaos had gotten beyond OK by even my pretty relaxed standards (plus the bed was covered with books).

TQ came over on Monday, we moved the furniture around, and then he stuck around bringing me piles of books while I sorted and shelved them - that moved things along nicely. After the sorting, the new bookshelf actually took most of the books I wanted to keep from both the medium bookshelf plus the "bookdrifts" - that was great. Tuesday I had my mammogram at NYU Langone in the afternoon and I left early to drop off the books and some decent clothing I just don't wear anymore (not being a size 8 anymore and too little troubled by that to think I'll ever get back down there) at the Housing Works bookshop and thrift shop on Crosby Street. Fortunately nice and close to the subway since we're having a heat wave!

There's nothing to be done about it, I have to finish. I've taken this week off for the express purpose of finishing off Project Seize the Space, because September is always one of my crazy months at work and if this doesn't get done this week it's not going to happen. Oh, yes, and the main driver behind all the decluttering (I can say this here now that I've told my parents) is that I've invited TQ to move in with me and he's taken me up on this. We've both been pretty happy with the separate apartments close together set-up we've had for a while, but he hasn't been entirely happy with his apartment, rents in this neighborhood are high and getting higher, and I have a pretty nice place with fixed expenses (was fortunate to buy before this neighborhood really took off - a friend in real estate steered me right!). After all these years, I figured maybe we could give living together a try.

Won't be writing about it much, he's a pretty private person and this is not a relationship blog, but there you go, that's why all this space-clearing has to be finished this week. And yes, so of COURSE this week when everything HAS to get done is when we get another heat wave! And I don't have AC. So this is NOT being a fun staycation. I'm up this late because I hardly got going today until the temperature started coming down a little in the late afternoon - but once I did I was on a roll for a while.

I'd hoped to be wrapping up today, but that didn't happen, but after tonight's work, I finally am really feeling like I'm getting there and that's where the Friday Early Morning Sunrise Swim comes in. I'm thinking that I will roust myself out of bed on Friday morning and and get myself out to Coney Island for my second ever Friday Early Morning Sunrise Swim. This is something a lot of my Coney Island swimmer friends do all summer. I am really not a morning person but the idea of a sunrise swim after spending so much time this wek being sticky and smelly and gross while doing dusty, dirty housework just sounds HEAVENLY. When I originally came up with that idea I was actually thinking that maybe I would just stay in the water up to my chin all day - it does look like it will cool down a bit so that might not be quite necessary, but a beach break after all of this sounds like just the thing.

I did make one this summer - that was a very special occasion and not just because I actually got up in time to see the sunrise. The real special occasion was an absolutely beautiful wedding between two avid Coney Island swimmers! I'd already been plotting to attend the swim with my downstairs neighbor Rochelle, then my friend Jenn (the Brooklyn Runner in Calgary, temporarily back in Brooklyn in July and also an enthusiastic Coney Island swimmer) let me know about the wedding. Allyson has been one of the friendliest and most welcoming of the generally friendly and welcoming Polar Bear Club when I've joined them for April swims for the last few years, she's a great photographer, and she welcomed me and my friend Barbara to her Team Boobie Prize for last year's Coney Island edition of Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, so I was so excited to get Jenn's note. I don't know Dr. Romano as well but she sounds pretty amazing herself. A genuine Coney Island love story. And yes, I took pictures!