At the New Year, I made one resolution that I swore I was going to accomplish. I know we are just about a quarter of the way through 2023, but I still haven’t made any headway into accomplishing this grand task. It’s not a life-or-death task, and it’s not like I’m running out of time to get it done. But I resolved that I was going to give my record collection a long overdue organization.
For most people, this would be a simple task that takes a few hours over an afternoon or an evening. For me, when your collection takes up a portion of a wall in your downstairs room, you’re gonna need a bigger boat. I think that’s why I find myself dragging my feet about getting into it. The last time I did this it took a day and a half. That was years ago and my collection has grown more than a good bit since.
There’s also that pesky factor of time. Since last Summer I swear that I end every week going “That was a busy week, I hope it quiets down a little next week.” Then I’ll repeat that till we get to me saying “That was a busy month, I hope it quiets down a little next month.” This is the world I have lived in for a while. Somedays it’s a “drink all the coffee and hang on” and others it’s “The chaos is somewhat organized and if you’re studious you may have one cup of coffee between the time of 9:15 and 9:55 this morning.”
I know that when it comes to this round of organization, which will include some long overdue thinning out of a couple of records, will be a multi-day affair. One year ago I organized and alphabetized my CD collection—yes, I still have all of mine as I don’t trust everything to stream. That took two days to finish. I’ve said many times on these pages that I love music and I simply need to have the physical objects that contain the sounds in my life.
There are some small ways where Past Andy will have helped Current Andy when it comes time for Future Andy to finally start going through all the vinyl. Some artists are organized, and there is some genre organizing going on. One-half of the shelving is devoted to rock/pop and the other is broken down into segments by shelf. One for Christmas, Jazz, Soul/R&B, Vocal Jazz, and Soundtracks, and another for lots of random bits of whatnot that is my various section.
The day will come, before the end of this year, when I will get this done. I’m half debating seeing if I can trick some friends into coming over and helping me. It’s not so much taking the old records off the shelf that I fear will overwhelm me, as much as it is what it will look like when all these are out on the floor in stacks being ready to be flipped through so I can alphabetize them.
I simply dread the idea of having all my records off their shelf, only to be overwhelmed to the point of not doing anything with them. Yet, I know that at some point I’ll do it. Maybe I should come up with a plan where I just go through and grab all the records out in alphabetical order. All the As, Bs, and so on, right down the line.
Still. I can’t help but like the idea of getting friends over to help. I’ll cook, it’s a good bribe. Then maybe I’ll finally get the darn things in order. Till then, I’ll just keep staring at it, putting the “pro” in “procrastination.” See you next week.