Still in the spirit of catching up, I've reviewed some of the things I wrote down with the intention of expounding. In some cases, I've even forgotten what they mean. Or whether I already wrote about them. And I wonder if anyone would be interested to read the things I never said about Coachella. Or Comic-Con. Or any number of other things. I get easily overwhelmed these days. I can only write about something that happened if only one thing happened. I can only write about what I think if I'm only thinking one thing. In all other cases, I start shuffling things around and wanting to revisit and edit and rearrange. And then I never write anything at all. And time passes. And it becomes all the more apparent that the world is not being changed, so why bother? But of course I continue to bother. With self-important hopes that writing is good and that telling is worthwhile and that anyone is reading with more than one eye open and that anyone is listening with any amount of eagerness. Not to disparage people who are forced to wear an eye patch. Reading with one eye is nothing to be ashamed of. But it's really bad for you if you intend to use both eyes simultaneously at some point in the future. Also bad for you? Visine. I know it's weird. It seems like it would be good for you because it's sold in drugstores in the aisle where helpful products are lined up with their labels all facing out, but it's actually really bad. You can get callouses on your eyeballs. Isn't that nuts? I use Visine constantly. I also slouch and eat a lot of red meat and fail to empty the lint trap in the dryer on every usage. So you can see I'm no role model. Don't follow me off a cliff, kids. I may not actually know where I'm going.
I've been trying to sort through the enormous inventory of clothing I have amassed. I have nowhere near enough storage room for all of it. And I'm finally displacing my nostalgic attachment to many, many items I will never, never wear. I can still pick up some skirt or sweater and go, "Oh. I remember when I wore this that one time." And I can imagine a time in the future when I may regret having discarded that skirt or sweater because of a neurotic desire to look at it again and go, "Oh. I remember when I wore this that one time." But I can also imagine a time in the future when I might like to move. Or when I might like to offer someone a place to hang a coat. Or when I might want to actually be able to step into my walk-in closet. So, I toil. And there is a sidebar benefit to culling through the piles and bags and boxes and heaps. I may never have to buy a pair of socks again. See, it is often my practice -- when I can't find a matching pair or a pair that is matchingly clean-looking or a pair that is soft and brand new -- to just go buy a whole bunch of new ones. And even though some of my older socks -- though hardly unwearable by homeless standards -- will never ever see the inside of my sneakers again, I have really never bothered to throw any of them away. Sometimes this comes in handy. One of my ex-boyfriends was trying to cover his wrists when he was dressed in a Scooby Doo costume that wasn't long enough for him, and I found a pair of Calvin Klein socks in a suitable yellow/brown hue, and we cut the feet off and made makeshift sleeve extensions out of them. If I only had a few pairs of socks, I could certainly never have spared that pair. So, you see, there is reinforcing circumstance to promote my packrat behavior. But at the risk of failing to complete a future costume, I'm getting rid of a lot of socks. And good riddance. At the same time, I have found an unbelievable number of perfectly good and often new pairs that I can now stuff into a drawer and not wear for years to come. It's like sock Christmas. Maybe I'll wrap some of them for fun. I'm also getting rid of a lot of things that still have pricetags on them. This is embarrassing. And part of why I will probably never own a house that I paid for with my own money. I am careless when it comes to shopping. And I could probably wear something different -- something entirely different -- every day for a year. Maybe two. Of course, some days would be weird, because I'd have to be wearing a ball gown or a Star Trek uniform, but you wouldn't be able to say you'd ever seen it before. If you happen to see me wearing anything you've ever seen me wear before, you should probably be disappointed. In practice, I have numerous pieces of clothing I count among my favorites, and they get much more frequent airplay than the others. But I don't see any of you frequently enough that I think you would notice, and I'm down-to-earth enough to know that you don't care.
I'm reorganizing my office, too. It's always on the verge of being declared an avalanche zone. I'm tired of that. I'm tired of having to move 200 CDs out of the way before I can get to the copier. I'm tired of not being able to open my filing cabinet drawers, even if they are only filled with old bags of Easter candy and back issues of the International Male catalog. I'm tired of wondering what the wheel of my chair is always caught on. I'm tired of hearing my friend Julie talk about feng shui and feeling embarrassed by it. I'm tired of talking about all the art I've been meaning to frame and the wall shelves I've been meaning to install. This way, when I decide that I'm also tired of not having finished scanning that stack of Lomos on my desk, I can actually raise the lid of the scanner without displacing a stack of CD-Rs containing my old email files from the year 2000 and software installers that are of no discernible value in this age and operating system. When I think of all the things that bar me from being a dynamo of productivity, I want to declare war on them. And when I am declaring war in my imagination, I'm dressed like a Mongol but cleaner.
I drove home from San Diego this afternoon after having a nice leftover Thanksgiving lunch with my mom. My dad was already napping, the dear. It was cold and blue-skied this afternoon. And it felt good to want pockets for my hands. Less good to not actually be wearing pockets. But I survived. It was a long and action-packed weekend, and I felt the relief of getting home. I felt it in my very bones.
I got a little sentimental a few times. And it didn't kill me.
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