one man's treasure

have you ever tried to get organized? i once got a magazine that had a little insert all about organization. it was a little book that one could just pull out of the magazine and keep in a drawer. one could take it out and flip through it every once in a while or when one felt one's life was beyond help. one would look longingly at picture after picture of labeled boxes on a shelf, all in a row. one would lose one's breath gazing at the glossy photo of a little bulletin board with magnetized containers arranged like little soldiers, each one holding various tiny objects, themselves all implements of further, tinier organization. then one would carefully tuck the booklet away again and gently close the drawer. or try to close the drawer. then open the drawer and smoosh around the receipts and papers and then slam the drawer fast. and walk away, ignoring the one renegade paper whose corner would invariably be sticking out of the edge.

that was my life, ladies and gerunds. i lived the life of a slovenly little character. i had some friends who would say, "oh, you're so organized!" but i just kept what one would call, a deceptively organized exterior. that, and a storage container. it wasn't until my cher ami of all chers amis started the protracted move-in extravaganza that i had to take a close and terrifying look at the reality of my rodent-like tendencies. first i will say that some of these details are for entertainment's sake. i don't have dirty dishes or chewed gum laying around or anything. it's not like the granule has tar and twigs coming off of her fur. and for the record, neither do i. nobody is running around in overalls. i just have a lot of stuff.

now, marrying a minimalist is never easy, but when you come from good sentimental stock, it just makes things nearly impossible. now, i will preface this by saying that as of press time, i am reformed and i did so of my own volition. i am very happy with my life now. you will hear all about it later. i have things in containers and they are labeled. i know! it seems impossible! but we will get to that later. i just want you to know that i was of sound mind when i embarked on this clearing-out exercise that lasted a year. and while i will explain to you in great detail my need to defend every item i owned, please don't harbor any ill will against my spouse of all spice. he was just doing what anyone would do given the circumstances. and i am all the happier for it now. and no, i am not brainwashed. and no, i am not suffering from stockholm syndrome.

now, first we had to organize the kitchen. then, we had to clean out each closet. then, we had to clean out the garage, which was filled nearly to the rafters with boxes. then, when that was empty, we ordered my storage container which had been slumbering peacefully for over a year and had it delivered. we had to go through every box that was also slumbering all that time. now, this is time-lapse blogging and what i just described to you really did take over a year. we stopped to eat and work occasionally, but we worked pretty hard.

so, here are some things that survived the purge:
a little red baking soda can containing a tiny capsule with a secret message in it, a piece of a grapevine that one can wear on one's finger like an ornate ring and a yellow pencil sharpener.

and here is something that did not survive said purge:
a tube of hair product that had, through some sort of chemical reaction that apparently takes 4.5 years, turned into a compound of coal tar, horse urine and bone oil.

another thing that survived:
ape on a string. it was a remnant from my childhood. when my sister and i were little parsnips, we used to swing around this ape attached to a long yellow piece of aunt lydia's rug yarn. it was a game that kids today couldn't appreciate. anyway, i have ape on a string still. he is probably going to be around forever. in case of a dirty bomb, i plan to take my passport, some photographs and ape on a string. now the neatest thing of all about ape on a string is that even though he appears to be the product of a mass-produced rubber ape factory, and he is quite small, there is great detail. you can see it in his hands and feet. every finger seems to be articulated. kids today couldn't understand that either. and that is part of why ape on a string survived.

and a final thing that didn't survive, just so things aren't uneven around here: a box of floppy discs that probably contain either the great american novel or bank records from 1991. in either case, they are gone.

oh, and i got rid of that little booklet about how to get organized. i don't need that thing anymore. today i have clear plastic bins containing the necessary relics from each period of my life. they are labeled and easy to get to. there is the box of photos from the mesozoic era, the glass animals from the crustacean period, the spelling bee trophies from the orthodonist era and the old uniforms from the triaminic period. everything is just as it should be. even my spices are labeled, in a special drawer. camping gear (we call it survival gear in my family, armageddonists that we are) is all in a bin. swimming things are in a bin. crafts things are in a bin. dog things are in a bin.

anyway, friends. i am happier now that i have shed the past and all of its dross. i never thought i'd see the day. i kind of feel like a cartoon animal that has been hauling something all the way up a hill for XX years. that's not twenty years, either, dear readers. so here we are, almost in december and i'm all organized and ready for a new year. and new things. i like stuff. i still like stuff.