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My life is not organized, but I prefer it that way. I'm not talking emotion or fate or the path on which I'm headed. I refer to things like my books, my desk, and the inside of my car. Lorenz, assuming he could have understood the "order-within-chaos" of my worldly posessions, would have forgotten worrying about the weather and would have discovered strange attractors staring him in the face from my glove compartment. A butterfly could land on one receipt in my filing "system", and one month later my power would probably be shut off.
Something has to budge about my books. I've had hotel rooms bigger than my apartment, and I just can't keep them all here. Today I organized them into three rough stacks -- paperbacks, hardbacks I want, and hardbacks I don't want (I seem to have acquired my mom's old regency romance novel collection). The latter will go to a library or used-book store, the former will stay in the apartment, and the hardbacks I want will go into storage. Oddly enough, I don't have any more boxes, even though I just moved. They seem to have served their purpose and disappeared.
So I figure I need some of those legal boxes with the handles in the sides, so I can haul them around. Today I visited....The Container Store.
If you haven't heard of The Container Store, you're probably my kinda person. My soon-to-be-ex would sign over paychecks to the place, but then, she was one of those very organized people. The kind who kept index cards in a box describing what's contained in each of her other index card boxes. The Container Store is a store whose market plan is completely devoted to those people who love organizing things. It is almost the anti-dimension of me, kinda like that parallel Star Trek dimension with the evil Spock.
There is no exaggeration in the next few paragraphs. I am totally serious.
So, I knew what I wanted. Legal boxes. I figured, 2 minutes, I'm in and out. I spend the first 2 minutes in the parking lot trying to park. I try to pull into the rows of parking spaces, but there is a lady with her baby in a stroller blocking the firelane/driveway. She could walk across the ten feet of fire lane to the front door, but instead she walks eight feet sideways to a crosswalk, then the ten feet across. I pull into the parking rows, then am stopped by someone pulling in and out of her spot, twice, to align herself with the lines painted in the lot. I sigh to myself -- in all of Atlanta, the only people who use crosswalks and pay attention to the parking lines would be at this store.
I park and I'm inside. I go to the back of the store, past the jars to hold things, shelves to hold things, multicolor hangers, plastic storage bins, and file cabinets, and I am surrounded in an aisle entirely devoted to cardboard organization. There are wreath boxes, which I assume are for Christmas wreaths, but am really unsure. It is 5 months to Christmas, and I don't think this store is that organized. Yet I'm not convinced that truely organized people would put something else in a box clearly labeled "Wreath Box". There are other boxes for all sorts of things, including weird, bizzare storage containers that start flat, but are meant to be folded like some sort of neatnik origami into shoe bins with special nooks to hold your shoehorns and polish.
After five minutes of checking every box for its type and intended use, I realize something slightly embarassing and completely terrifying: In a store devoted to organization, I am lost and can't find what I'm looking for.
The air was getting a bit...clean...for me (I have a sneaking feeling the air vents had unseen hepa filters) so I broke out of my Y-chromosome DNA loop-lock and hunted down a store clerk to assist me. She knew exactly where they were and gave me perfect directions to find them. Boxes in hand, I made my escape.
I survive to tell my tale.
Something has to budge about my books. I've had hotel rooms bigger than my apartment, and I just can't keep them all here. Today I organized them into three rough stacks -- paperbacks, hardbacks I want, and hardbacks I don't want (I seem to have acquired my mom's old regency romance novel collection). The latter will go to a library or used-book store, the former will stay in the apartment, and the hardbacks I want will go into storage. Oddly enough, I don't have any more boxes, even though I just moved. They seem to have served their purpose and disappeared.
So I figure I need some of those legal boxes with the handles in the sides, so I can haul them around. Today I visited....The Container Store.
If you haven't heard of The Container Store, you're probably my kinda person. My soon-to-be-ex would sign over paychecks to the place, but then, she was one of those very organized people. The kind who kept index cards in a box describing what's contained in each of her other index card boxes. The Container Store is a store whose market plan is completely devoted to those people who love organizing things. It is almost the anti-dimension of me, kinda like that parallel Star Trek dimension with the evil Spock.
There is no exaggeration in the next few paragraphs. I am totally serious.
So, I knew what I wanted. Legal boxes. I figured, 2 minutes, I'm in and out. I spend the first 2 minutes in the parking lot trying to park. I try to pull into the rows of parking spaces, but there is a lady with her baby in a stroller blocking the firelane/driveway. She could walk across the ten feet of fire lane to the front door, but instead she walks eight feet sideways to a crosswalk, then the ten feet across. I pull into the parking rows, then am stopped by someone pulling in and out of her spot, twice, to align herself with the lines painted in the lot. I sigh to myself -- in all of Atlanta, the only people who use crosswalks and pay attention to the parking lines would be at this store.
I park and I'm inside. I go to the back of the store, past the jars to hold things, shelves to hold things, multicolor hangers, plastic storage bins, and file cabinets, and I am surrounded in an aisle entirely devoted to cardboard organization. There are wreath boxes, which I assume are for Christmas wreaths, but am really unsure. It is 5 months to Christmas, and I don't think this store is that organized. Yet I'm not convinced that truely organized people would put something else in a box clearly labeled "Wreath Box". There are other boxes for all sorts of things, including weird, bizzare storage containers that start flat, but are meant to be folded like some sort of neatnik origami into shoe bins with special nooks to hold your shoehorns and polish.
After five minutes of checking every box for its type and intended use, I realize something slightly embarassing and completely terrifying: In a store devoted to organization, I am lost and can't find what I'm looking for.
The air was getting a bit...clean...for me (I have a sneaking feeling the air vents had unseen hepa filters) so I broke out of my Y-chromosome DNA loop-lock and hunted down a store clerk to assist me. She knew exactly where they were and gave me perfect directions to find them. Boxes in hand, I made my escape.
I survive to tell my tale.
