A momentous decision

Yesterday, a flurry of closet winnowing. I got rid of skirts so short I'd have to be drunk to wear them again - and I don't drink.

Melina got rid of dresses she wore when she was thirteen. I passed some clothes along to her and then we both gratefully dumped things we thought we should keep but didn't want to: a hot-pink blazer bought at the Goodwill when I once thought I would start wearing pink, white shirts I bought knowing I never wear white shirts. Melina pointed out that unwanted gifts (like my poison green T-shirt which says L'Chaim on it and her op-art polyester muscle shirt) are very hard to dump.

My momentous decision was this: from now on, I will strive to put all my hangers on the closet rod facing the same direction. Just one less bit of chaos. Just one more small thing to rely upon.

I lack the gift of order, but there is slow progress. Seven years ago I started sorting the silverware into the proper fork - knife - spoon slots instead of dumping it with a tremendous clatter that turned the usually comatose Digit into a fuzzy grey projectile shooting herself upstairs.

Then I started hanging my car keys on a nail instead of leaving them absolutely every whichever place - by and large I've stuck with it and saved myself half an hour looking for them every day. And sometime in the last decade I also started putting my socks away in pairs.

A long term anti-entropy goal: to put my tools away after a project is completed, instead of forgetting about them instantly the moment they are no longer in my hands. Some day I hope to keep my shovel under the porch instead of leaving it out by the dirt pile to rust.