An Ode to Sightlines (safe for work version)

Oh Screw, you do your job,
No acknowledgement, no complaint.
But alas, the parts you hold together
Were not meant to last forever,
Today you get reprieve.

You're the last binding post
In a place behind the visual world
There's evidence of your presence
In your stubborn hold.

My fingertips, with knowing touch
Find your subtle indentations,
Align the blades, press, rotate
Release you of your charge.

The dirty cleaned, the burred reamed,
The squeaky wheel now greased,
The destroyed ready to be employed.
Time to return to your post.

Now my fingertips once so agile
Are now nun-chucks wielded by child
Flailing about, smacking my snout
Making me scream and cry

As the seconds turn to minutes
and minutes turn to hours
I move around, lift off the ground
Shear skin from knuckles and then howl

'You dirty funky curt bench hole
I swear I'll hurking kill you
You dirty bench, you mother friendly witch
Why the puck do you punking hate me.'

The flashlight, useless in this space,
Has explored the wonder of flight
I try to see, with mirrors I plea,
But nothing gives me sight.

When soul is bent and skin is broken
Miracle occurs
At long last screw, MY lonely screw
Find your thread, FOUND YOUR THREAD!!!

Cautiously my fingers rotate
Your head while maintaining
Downward pressure, must be measured
Cannot lose this place

The shoulder strains to maintain.
Contact with your slight engagement
One final twist, our final tryst
I lose you, and plead, 'DAMMIT!'

Then from corners dark
Comes an unexpected hero.
'That sure sucks, couldn't you just
Come over here and remove this panel?'

Fighting the urge towards
Child abuse I move over my gaze.
Remove the plate, filled with hate.
And send you easily to your place.

Eff. me. And Eff this damned machine.

Annual and a half update

So I haven't posted in a while.  Like a year and a half.  It's been pretty busy, and some progress has been made, but it is incremental at best.  The hallways are pretty much clear!  All 3 children have a legitimate bed to sleep on!  In a legitimate room!  This by itself is enough to allow me to get by most days without a hoarder rage spiral and that is great. 

There is still lots of work to do.  The living room is pretty crowded, and Eldest's bedroom (formerly Destroyers uninhabitable room) is very crowded as well.  The kitchen and dining room are in a state of flux, but improved from a month ago.  Hoarder's and my bedroom is as bad as it's ever been, but that's okay if the rest of the house is improving.  The real down side to this is school is starting in a few weeks and Hoarder is going to burdened with getting that done instead of getting the house done.  We'll see how it turns out, but I imagine she's going to struggle to find the time to do both.

On a personal note I have had an excellent summer.  The outside of our house no longer looks like the home of a hoarder.  Some serious work got done in the yard; including storage for the kids toys, a leveled out play area for the kids, a new garden bed and a boatload of new plantings.  No more garbage in the front or back yard.  The other day Destroyer and I were playing a game of soccer all across our backyard, which would have been impossible at the beginning of summer.  Or any time in the last 6 years.  It was pretty dusty out there when we got done.  It must be getting dusty in here, too.  I'm having trouble seeing my computer screen.  Just a little blurry.

Over the summer I've left Hoarder to her own devices inside the house, focusing mostly on getting stuff taken care of in the yard.  She has been pretty good about continuing to make progress over the summer while she has relatively little responsibility in other areas.  As always it is slow, but it has been much more tangible this summer than it has been in years past.  A couple of full truckloads of stuff (mostly clothes) have made their way out of our house (and out of the truck!).  Good on ya, Hoarder!

The battle continues, but for the first time in a long time the battle lines are actually moving, which is amazing.