Thursday Thirteen...things about this room

Thirteen...things about this room (yeah, it's a cop-out, gimme a break, I'm having a busy week!) 1. When we first moved in here, this was the spare room, and for at least six months it was just full of stuff. I mean, there was furniture and boxes stacked chest-height all across the room. 2. It's been my office for maybe five years now, and it's usually still stacked chest-high with crap. Tidy, I am not. 3. There are five full-height and one half-height bookshelves in here, and I'm contemplating getting another one. That's fifty feet of shelf space just for my fiction books, and probably another ten or so for the non-fiction (just my history, costume and reference books; the rest are downstairs, along with the classics and some plays). I've never counted them. I don't think I can count that high! 4. But if you allow an inch or so for each book, that's about six hundred fiction. Wowsa! 5. I have two desk chairs: one of those kneely things that I use, and one normal desk chair that did my back no good. But before I got around to finding someone to help me downstairs with it, my cat too it over. It's Spike's Chair now. And it's about an inch deep in white fur. I wouldn't dream of moving it now--or sitting on it, for that matter! 6. I spent most of yesterday tidying up in here; I told you I was messy. There's a futon that's usually buried under stuff that I need to open out for my brother to sleep on when we have family staying this weekend. See, it's still sometimes the spare room. 7. I have three Spike (the vampire, not the cat, although one is named for the other) posters up here, plus a series of framed autographs of the Buffy and Firefly cast. Only half a dozen, but it's a growing collection! 8. Next to my computer is a music stand. I gave up on having a proper desk when my chronic messiness meant that I could rarely find the mouse. Now I have a little computer desk that I can't actually fit extra crap on, and a music stand for whatever books, notebooks, or notes I'm working from. 9. My windowsill holds the following: a Victorian-style doll who really doesn't have anywhere else to go; a black Cleopatra wig; a Lego Technics racing car, with hydraulic suspension (I'm a wicked Lego engineer, or was when I was about twelve anyway), an oversized Guinness hat from St Patrick's Day last year; a dog brush; my old glasses; a Grow-You-Own-Boyfriend kit; a laquered carnival mask; the 2007 Writers and Artists Yearbook; an incense holder; a foot-high wooden artists lay figure with a hair elastic around its neck; a sketch for mural I painted in the downstairs loo; and about three inches of miscellaneous bits of paper I'm too scared to disturb in case they all cascade onto the floor and bury me. 10. There's a little wooden cat dressed as a ballerina hanging on a spring from the light fitting, three small cat statues on top of one bookshelf (including one cast in bronze from the British Museum) and at least seven soft toy cats perching on various books, plus the two little Jellycats on either side of my monitor. There's also a pair of sunflowers with faces, a couple of sheep, a teddy bear proclaiming he's twenty-one (he's a rotten liar; he's four), and a seal. Oh, and a plastic tiara with fake rubies on it. And a spiral cone hat with a painted veil. Of course. 11. I have this as my desktop wallpaper. I call it First Contact. The kitten at the back with the blue eye is Spike and the one investigating is Sugar, about half an hour after we first brought them home last year. The black cat is Tinker, my old man. He died a few months after that photo was taken. 12. There's a small bowl of crystals on the shelf next to my computer: amethyst, hematite, bloodstone etc, all chosen for their various powers of creativity and concentration. Also because they're pretty. 13. At the back of the door I have a Homer Simpson poster. It says this:

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!