Photos of my junk
Posted on Friday 08/12/2022 08:55:03
I didn’t have to. But since there were requests from the women on KCL, I have done it. In fact not only did I take a photo of my junk room (or ‘box room’ as they are popularly called in the UK), I took some others too, while I had my kit out. None of the basement, naturally. The girls like their privacy, and I respect that.
Box room
This used to be my mother’s bedroom, which is why there is a painting hanging rather incongruously on the wall. I could have removed it, but preferred to leave it. It was done by a watercolour artist who lived in the village in north Germany where she grew up.
Living room
A few signs of opulence! Again, any purely decorative items are my mother’s, which I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of. The large wooden chest in the corner, once used for storing things like bed linen, has carved on the side: ‘Frauke Maaß Kriegsjahr 1942’. She’d have been 14 that year, so it’s not exactly the same as a dowry chest, but is of a similar nature.
This room was primarily used by my mother, and when my siblings and nieces visited this is where we’d gather. Now it mainly gathers dust.
Dining room
This was never actually used as a dining room; my mother and I ate in the kitchen. Now the dining room table is used for my previous PC, HAL9000, which was relegated to backup use after I built my newer gaming PC, Skynet, a few years ago. Since it still works, I leave it in case of the horrifying event that Skynet should fail, or take over the world.
The large grey thing on the table is an A3 scanner, and the thing in the far corner is an A3 colour laser printer. I don’t do much artwork nowadays, but these things allow me to resize or alter the positioning of drawings on the sheet without having to start them entirely from scratch.
The clock was a gift to my father on his retirement from the engineering company for which he worked for most of his life.
The framed quotation by Goethe is done by hand; it was done by one of my mother’s schoolteachers as an award: ‘Den besten Schülern im Schriftkursus gewidmet von Hans Rentsch Oktober 1942’ (‘Dedicated to the best students in the writing course by Hans Rentsch October 1942’).
Kitchen
This pretty well speaks for itself. As you’d expect for a bachelor, I keep to the principle of having only those items of cutlery or crockery I have immediate use for (one large plate, one small plate, one knife, one fork, one teaspoon, one soup spoon— you get the idea). I wash them immediately after using them, so they’re always available. I scorn the dishwasher that was built into one of the kitchen units, partly due to my lifestyle, and partly because I have no idea how to use it.
The electric oven remains likewise unused, though in this case mainly because it’s ridiculously expensive to use for single meals. I use only the microwave and the gas hob.
Library
When I moved to this house I had about 1100 books; I had to get rid of about half of them in order to have space for them. Naturally, life being what it is, there are books here which I haven’t read again, or even at all, while I’ve had to buy new copies of books which I thought confidently I’d never read again.
lunamor Says:
OMG that is HUGE!!! Those poor basement girls...I hope they AREN'T doing their kegels.
lunamor Says:
Goddamnit, no homepage. Fuck my life. Oh well.
All jokes aside: Your junk room is neater than anything in my house! I think about the book thing all the time...shelves and shelves of books I've read once and probably won't again, so why am I keeping them? Because I love being surrounded by books. It makes me happy, and that's enough. Some people like art or sculpture or whatever. I suppose it's the exception to my desire not to have useless things around. I really like your house!
kittenheel Says:
THAT's your junk room? My sweet summer child, it doesn't qualify. I have a large-ish closet where opening the door puts you in danger of Something Big, Heavy, and Unidentifiable falling on your head and knocking you unconscious. I sincerely hope I'm not the only one who has a closet like this.
kittenheel Says:
And speaking of junk, yesterday Susan sent me that Instagram pic of Tommy Lee in the altogether, and I actually made that :o face. I even messaged my FB and talked to him for a bit. I'm just saying, Susan has this uncanny ability to know when you need to see an impressive set of junk. I wish she were here. /homepage
Simon Says:
I feel I have to defend myself now, and the best I can come up with is ‘It’s the effect of using a wide-angle lens!’ But somehow that just makes it sound worse.
I’m sorry to say that I don’t know who Tommy Lee is, but I did see a rather coyly edited version of the image you’re talking about, Mary. All I can say is that the basement girls keep telling me that size isn’t important when it comes to my junk, and I believe them.
Regarding my library, I keep telling myself that it’s better to have the real thing in your hands than downloading a digital version. Sometimes you need something substantial.
Fritz The Bootlegger Says:
Mary: Hey FB I think we should chill for a while.
*Mary sees picture of Tommy Lee’s penis*
Mary: Hey FB, you up?
Fritz The Bootlegger Says:
And that’s how it’s fucking done, Lunamor.
Fritz The Bootlegger Says:
So Simon, any chance Hans Rentsch survived the Krieg? Or was he called up in 1945 to defend Berlin from the Soviets along with his clsssroom full of teenaged true believers?
lunamor Says:
Why are you talking at me? If we want sex, we know how to get it. We don't need to be told when to want it or how to get it. Pretty simple, and that's how we get laid on our terms. :D
Simon Says:
Steve, I can no longer remember what my mother told me about him, but I suspect he would probably have been too old to be called up, given that he was still a schoolteacher in 1942.
She did tell me about how, before the war, one of her father’s workers, who was popular with her and her siblings, was the head of the local communist party, and that he used to get into drunken fights with the head of the local Nazi party. The worker survived (both being imprisoned as a communist and being called up); his antagonist was sent to the Eastern Front, from which, you won’t be surprised to hear, he never returned.
lunamor Says:
Fuck yeah!
Fritz The Bootlegger Says:
Yeah the Eastern Front was not cohesive to a long life span.
Jess, I was referring to my ability to get my comment on the homepage. Which obviously mattered seeing as how you seemed disappointed that yours did not make the homepage. Why did you assume I was talking at you about sex?
lunamor Says:
Honestly it didn’t occur to me you were talking about making the home page.
Simon Says:
The trick is to make a comment about one’s penis – or anyone’s penis – and see if it will end up on the home page. The comment, I mean, not the penis.
lunamor Says:
The number of times a missing penis has caused me grief... *sigh* Well, I shall have to find a way to carry on despite the psychological distress.
Simon Says:
There, you see! Like magic. Penis is obviously the word. At least in the context of regret, such as ‘My penis is very small. It can be very hard for me at times.’
lermontov Says:
Very helpful illustrations Simon - I'm not sure how to add photos to posts anymore.
My place is actually quite tidy - mainly due to a cleaner. I do however, have a lot more alcohol.
Evil Fury Says:
This looks NOTHING like I've always pictured! Total opposite, in fact. I didn't imagine bright and airy, but more a cozy kinda vibe, with fireplaces throughout and warm colors. I love that you still surprise me on the daily.