bottle it up, tuck it away.

As I reached for some hot pink staples in my top desk drawer a moment ago, I realized how much of my sanity depends on compartmentalized mayhem. Messy Manor is generally half-way clean these days (I blame A for a large portion of the remaining mess :) ), the Rav reached new levels of tidiness last weekend, and my office is pristine. However, there are little pockets of space that are all sorts of chaotic: The aforementioned top desk drawer, an aptly labeled "junk drawer" in the kitchen, a couple of baskets near the bathroom, a plastic tub pushed to the very back of the shelf in my closet. All of these spaces are jam-packed with odds and ends and have absolutely no rhyme or reason in terms of organization. Being the English major that I was, and still secretly am, I can't help but look at these haphazard hiding places as metaphors for the rest of my life. Good-to-go on the surface, but just barely keeping the chaos at bay.

--buelsy (buckling down).