The paper monkey on my back

How does one maintain regular creativity? And isn't that oxymoronic? You shouldn't schedule creativity. Creativity, by it's very nature, is spur-of-the-moment, unrehearsed, spontaneous. Isn't it?

But I find if I don't schedule it, don't mindfully carve some time out of the day to do it, it gets shoved to the back burner. Behind the flaming broken printer, insurance screw-ups and idiot billing departments.

I have come to the conclusion that my life would be considerably easier if people just did the damn jobs for which they were hired. But that's a whole other blog post.

I feel buried right now, and wholly uncreative. My darkroom is awash in Statements of Benefits, incorrect bills that require follow-up phone calls (in the case of one, nearly two years of follow-up phone calls...I'm gonna start gettin' real bitchy here soon on that one), retirement statements and receipts. I don't even wanna go in there anymore.

Hard to be creative when I can't get to my tools.

Is this what invariably happens when you use the tools of your art (in my case, the Mac) as the tools of your life, too? I use the Mac to pay bills, balance our checkbook, and track our budget. Hence, my desk quickly becomes covered in statements, receipts, paperclips, stapler, 3-hole-punch, post-it notes, pens and pencils...pretty much everything completely unnecessary and detrimental to cranking out kick-ass images on a regular basis.

The obvious solution is to create a whole new place just for that crap. There are several issues with this. First of all, we're out of space. My vintage guest room furniture is in storage for Pete's sake, leaving my guests to sleep on an air mattress in the finished basement. Second of all, we don't need yet another computer in the house dedicated solely to paying bills. While that would be nice, a.) we don't have a place to put it (see previous statement) and b.) I think a house that routinely has three laptops and two desktops doesn't need any more. (That count doesn't include Zoe's LeapFrog computer, which she would argue does count as a computer because she "checks her e-mail" on it about once a month.)

There is a point where there is technology overload. Hell, I just ditched three computers by recycling, so I don't relish the idea of bringing yet another in just to pay bills and such.

I have my bill/file system down pat to where I don't spend much time on it at all. A couple hours once a month, all at the same time. So time is not a factor here...it's just the space.

I have a stack of paperwork on/near my desk that is, no kidding, over a foot tall. This is just paperwork from the last month. Not even a full month. The stack goes on my desk when I vacuum the floor, and then back to the floor when I need to use the computer. Back and forth, back and forth. It drives me crazy. It's so tall now that I have to balance it carefully when I move it, lest I cause a paper avalanche and create an even bigger mess.

But there simply isn't anywhere else to put it. So I just keep moving it.

I read a story on the internet the other day about a man who lives in a tiny house. And by tiny I mean microscopic. Seriously, he lives in 89 square feet. I watched a video and the only thing I could think was, "Where does he keep his paperwork? Where does he keep his bank statements that we are required to keep for 7 years by the IRS and I could seriously fill that space with just retirement statements alone in six months..." We have a two-drawer file cabinet that is stuffed to overflowing with warranty paperwork and instruction manuals.

I am floundering in a sea of paper. Time for a purge.