Marie Kondo Socks
Ashley Albert, has still has her journals from the 80s and onward. We went to a magnet arts high school together in Miami, I think we were in a Spanish class together. I sucked at Spanish, but I believe I have a memory Ashley twirling around in some kind of flowing whirly skirt, with her big pretty eyes, and her long dark hair. Because she was fun, that's the first thing I remember when I think about her in high school. She seems very outgoing to me like a lot of the theater kids seemed. (I was a visual art kid, I was more like an aloof/brooding type, but I was not mean about it. I don’t know, we can talk about that another day.) She is adorable. Check her out.
Ashley posts her photo and asks about this Marie Kondo problem everyone has now. Should she just throw out these boxes of old journals?
I said “No” then I was thinking …
For Marie Kondo, fine, that is her thing. That brings her joy. Getting rid of most everything. That is fun for her. You can see it. I have her book, I read most of it and, sure, part of me wants my house to be empty and to always look like it is ready for a camera crew to come over and tell me that I won the HGTV Dream Home. Which, if I did, would be a waste, I will just mess the dream home up. Whatever I don’t mess up, Gemma and Mira, my three year and five year old, will take naps on, and that means, they will pee on it all if we don’t wake them up soon enough. We won't.
I am in transition right now, we just moved out of our Palmdale house in October to Pasadena. I keep pulling about five boxes at a time into my bedroom and sorting through piles of the stuff that I brought here. Last week, one of my lidded lunch containers with the built in ice pack turned out to have been outlandishly packed with its lunch contents (couscous and vegetables) still inside. That was easy to toss. I am generally feeling that I should not be getting anything new for the house, not even organizing bins, because we already have too much stuff we are filling up with couscous. I should be organizing it all and getting rid of the crap that is not sparky joyish.
My way of attempting to implement MK’s systems is that I try to sporadically figure out which things do “spark joy” and which things I will “thank,” hold to my chest, and bag up to dump in the big faded pink metal clothing donation box nearest to my house. That is a nice anonymous way to donate things, I love it. I don’t have to hand off my gathered up things to a person sorting through a pile going up to the ceiling of everyone’s crap, and fear that said person is going quickly take one look, roll their eyes, and hand it back telling me, “Sorry, lady, but we have to be able to sell these. We can’t take your crap which is not good enough compared to our current inventory of other crap.”
Let’s be honest, what sparks joy varies widely depending on what I have eaten that day, but, in truth, I need to keep lots of the stuff that never sparks joy, or even a smirk. My toothbrush defiantly doesn’t. Yet we must brush our teeth, right? Really, it is all just joyless, even if you think it sparked joy at 10am on Thursday, by Friday night, you will realize that it is total shit. I don’t know, maybe that's just me.
Obviously, Marie Kondo is super-can’t-touch-it-level-9000 good at organizing. I admire her. But formulating a way to organize and fold your socks - and having other people also fold their socks and clothes your special way, is really more about control than creativity. So I also opposite of admire her.
I added more on facebook, because most of the people I went to school with are in some way creative. Or at least they were then, probably most still are, right? Here is what I said:
Because even though I feel this pressure to organize and magic tidy the house, another part of me just wants my house to be full of stacks of books and magazines that I have half read or almost finished. I want it full of blankets that I can always reach from whichever spot I am in, without having to go over to the blanket box to think about and select the right one. How can I decide that when I am cold?
When I really like a book, I do this thing where I can’t read the last 10, 5, or 3 pages. I don’t want to finish it, that way I can still keep reading it for the next 5 years. It can’t disappoint me by ending badly, either. This will never be compatible with getting my book collection down to the tidy magic 35 books. It will not happen.
Here is the thing I hate most about facebook: I am innocently and sincerely answering a question one of my high school classmates who I think needs this detail about the creative issue at stake here to understand why I said no. It's my evidence for the do not toss vote. And then some stranger (who also said not to throw them out - I went back and looked) that I have never met even casually, suddenly, posts a comment and tags my name in it …. beckoning me back over. I don’t get it. Is it so they can tell me why what I said it is wrong?
Did I ask if my opinion about organizing socks is right or wrong, or for any random stranger’s thoughts on either socks or creativeness and/or any connection or lack of between the two? No, I am talking to my friend, who asked about something. I answered her question and said why I said what I did.
Not allowed! Now, I have to read this:
This is my friend’s friend. Maybe they aren’t trying to tell me I am wrong, I can’t figure out the motivation. Do they want to fight about whether or not organizing socks is stupid? Clearly, we are in disagreement and neither of us will win. This is entirely subjective. Why do they care about my judgements regarding sock organizing - they do not even know me?
How will I reply? Am I going to fight with her about socks and question wether her claim of being creative is valid or invalid? I seem to have accidentally triggered something.
I need to be nice and diplomatic, I am going to not question her about her creativity or her socks, I am going to just presume what she says about herself is in fact the truth. Like they say, “take her at her word” but I am going to still attack Marie Kondo. I will send this friend of my friend love. Because I am sick of everyone defending and standing up for their idiot opinions on facebook, even my own. Who cares? Why are we doing this? Me:
And then the reveal
Hmmmmm, so, I am supporting this person I had said. I say ….
Because I accidentally now have lied, how can I support this? I am not going to spend $99 for an utterly orthodox box. She insisted that she was creative, I was expecting a link to
a book of her poems
her series of mathematically calculated lithographs
or even a geometrically knitted scarf collection.
I said “Alright” because it is really none of her business that I don’t want my sex life to be organized any more than I want my socks folded. I am married, my sex life is entirely too organized already. The last time we used our dildos, after we washed them, we left them out on my bathroom counter drying for days. So long that my husband mentioned to me that we needed to put them away, but I left them out exposed, unboxed, certainly not locked up at all. We need to be able to get to them fast when we want them. If I locked them up - I would lose the key, and I would get ridiculously turned off by not being able to get them out.
I liked seeing our dildos out next to the sink, reassuring me that I am still hot, and I do still get to have sex sometimes, in spite of being married, 45, and having three kids.
They were so not in a box, that they were out until my 8 year old sauntered in unexpectedly one morning to ask me where her ruffle sweater was while I was brushing my teeth.
“Uhhhh, what is that?” She said.
EEeeeee…..I grabbed the little velvet bags we "hide" them in and said, “Never mind, about that, you.”
I told my husband, “Guess what? I put the dildos away. Yay, me!”
I didn’t tell him about Vivian seeing them first.
It is not that no one creative could fold and organize their socks. I’m open to the possibility. Be careful when you tag me though. I am never in a million years going to spend $99 for a dildo box, but if you want to, this is my way of supporting the box creative person. Here is her box link. Knock yourself out, y’all.