For a guy who never wears a suit jacket, I sure have a lot of them. As part of Project De-Clutter, Kris had me parade before here wearing each jacket in turn. I paraded ten times. Where did all of these come from?

The two I like best were both thrift store finds. They’re both wool sports coats in varying shades of brown and grey. They fit well. They move well. I might even enjoy wearing them! (I don’t think I’ve worn either of them before.)

The second best pair were, I think, donations from Jeremy Gingerich. They’re both the same size and style, just different colors. They fit okay, but are a little tight in the shoulders. As I continue my wellness regimen, they’ll probably actually fit just right eventually. The best part is that they come with matching slacks.

Then there are the four different navy blue jackets I’ve acquired over the course of my life. My father bought me one of them: it was my salesman’s uniform for several years when I was just out of college. It fits well enough, but I just don’t like it. The other two are way too big. (I suspect they’re also thrift store purchases.)

The last two jackets are no good: one is just too big, and the other is my Vernon Dursley jacket from oh-so-long ago.

I make a damn fine Vernon Dursley

Inside the breast pocket of the Vernon Dursley jacket, I found a cigar of the type Jeremy brought for us to smoke at that gathering. In fact, I’ve closed the door to my office and am smoking the cigar now. (It’s only a matter of time before Kris becomes enraged with me for this.)

These cigars were better five years ago, when they were fresh…

My other jackets contained goodies, too. One contained my ticket from Don Giovanni last May. Another contained the cork from a wine bottle. And a third contained banquet tickets from the 1999 Oregon FBLA State Leadership Conference — that was the year I helped Linda Kavan chaperone various events.

In any event, I’m only keeping five jackets, but even that seems like overkill. I’ll keep the two nice sports coats, the two suits from Jeremy, and the navy jacket that Dad bought me. (Though the latter may actually be purged soon, too.)

I’ve been working with my wellness coach, Lauren, again for the past few weeks. Though we both went into this expecting to focus more on physical fitness, our sessions have actually taken a surprising turn toward mental fitness. As a result I’ve been led practice meditation, to determine my personal priorities, to cut back on blogging, and, most recently, to de-clutter my environment.

As most of you are aware, I’m a clutter kind of guy. I accumulate stuff. I always have. When I was a boy, I had what my parent’s called a “rat’s nest” — a closet filled with whatever I could find and hoard. I still have packrat tendencies.

I collect comics. I have several hundred record albums. I have thousands of books. I’ve kept every letter or note ever written to me, from fifth grade until now. (Well, some have been lost, but only accidentally.) I keep every receipt. I gather free literature on roofing, on rototillers, on automobile tires. I collect this stuff, and I bring it all home.

I’m like a black hole for junk.

Obviously, this stuff all needs a place to live. Most of it lies buried in closets and sheds, but some of it — the most recently used stuff — has a tendency to collect in piles on every open surface. Since we moved to this house, we’ve managed to keep the downstairs mostly clutter-free, but the upstairs is a haven for the stuff.

Now, this might not be such a problem — I might be able to live a happy cluttered life — except for the fact that it really detracts from my ability to concentrate. If I sit at this desk and there are papers scattered everywhere, and there are things on the filing cabinet, and the coffee table is piled with books, and there’s stuff all over the floor, well then it becomes difficult for me to focus. I can’t write.

When I complained about my cluttered life at the Get Rich Slowly forums, several readers recommended Clutter’s Last Stand by Don Aslett. I got a copy, but I haven’t been able to read it yet because Kris took it and has had it ever since. It must be pretty motivational, because it’s prompted her to action. She spent the weekend de-cluttering whatever she could.

Though I haven’t had a chance to read the official de-cluttering techniques, I’ve made a start on my own projects. This office is now mostly clutter-free. I do still have one stack each on the filing cabinet, the bookshelf, and the desk, but that’s a vast improvement from before. (And, to be honest, as I look around at these piles right now, I feel the urge to stop and sort them.)

Andrew Cronk goes through periods in his life where he purges things. We’ll get together and he’ll say, “Here, J.D., I have some things for you.” He’ll hand me random stuff: a science fiction book, a computer game, a fishing pole. My understanding is that when he does this, he’s basically de-cluttering his life. Now, for the first time, I can really understand his motivation.

Don’t be surprised if, the next time I see you, I hand you a stack of comic books or some REO Speedwagon LPs.

This is dedicated to Tiffany, who loves these sorts of stories.

* ring *

J.D.: Custom Box Service
Bertha: What size are your medium boxes?
…long pause…

J.D.: Uh, well, we manufacture custom boxes, so we don’t have anything we’d call a medium box.
Bertha: But what size is a medium box? Is it seventeen inches?
…long pause…

J.D.: Well, I don’t know what a medium box is. It might have a side that is seventeen inches, but a box has three dimensions.
Bertha: I know, but couldn’t a medium box be seventeen by seventeen.
J.D.: And how high?
Bertha: I don’t care. I’m putting four coats in it. UPS wants me to quote them a size, but I don’t know it. All I want to know is how big your medium boxes are.
J.D.: Well, we don’t have medium boxes. That phrase doesn’t mean anything to us. We make boxes to order.
…long pause…

Bertha: But they might be seventeen inches right? That would fit four coats?
…long pause…

J.D.: I guess it might fit four coats, it’s hard to say.
Bertha: Well, it does firt four coats. I have a medium box here, and I have four coats in it and it’s ready to ship, but UPS wants to know what size the box is. That’s why I called you. All I need to know is what size a medium box is.
…long pause — J.D. is dumbfounded…

J.D.: Uh…
…long pause…

Bertha: Don’t you have a medium box?
J.D.: No, that’s what I’m trying to say. So you’re telling me that you have a box already. You don’t need a box. You just want to know how big the box you have is?
Bertha: I know what size it is. It’s a medium box. I just need to know the inches. I think it looks about seventeen by seventeen.
…long pause — we’re both getting frustrated at this point…

J.D.: Look. I have an idea. I think I can help you.
Bertha: Good.
J.D. Do you have a piece of paper near you? A piece of typing paper? A piece of notebook paper? Just a standard piece of paper that’s 8-1/2 x 11?
Bertha: Yes.
J.D.: Let’s use that to measure your box.
Bertha: How can we possibly do that. I don’t have a measuring stick.
J.D.: Well, we can use the paper to make a rough guess. The paper is 8-1/2 inches wide, right? If you measure two widths of the paper, that’s seventeen inches.
…long pause…

J.D.: Did you measure it?
Bertha: I don’t understand. All I want to know is how big a medium box is.
J.D.: Well, I’m trying…
* click *

Bertha hung up on me.

This was one of those rare weekends where we were able to cram in a lot of stuff, and yet I don’t feel overwhelmed, as if I didn’t have time for myself.

Saturday was book group, but on Friday afternoon, I still as only one hundred pages in. Since I chose the book, I figured I’d better get cracking. While Kris went grocery shopping, I climbed into the bathtub to read while soaking. Only I fell asleep.

I was dozing soundly when the phone rang. “Damn it,” I thought. “It’s probably Nick calling from work.” I went back to sleep. The phone rang again. Cursing, I pulled myself from the tub and sloshed naked to the phone. It was Kris. She was at Safeway, ready to pay, but she’d forgotten her wallet. She had, however, remembered her new cell phone.

I got dressed and drove to the store. “What would you have done if I hadn’t answered?” I asked.

“Just kept calling,” she said brightly.

Grrrrrr.

I’ve noted before that I’m not the best person to be using a chainsaw. By nature, I’m clumsy. One might even call me careless and not get an argument.

Still, there are many chores around Rosings Park that are aided by a chainsaw. We have a lot of wood, and while it could be chopped with an axe, that would take several orders of magnitude more time than I’m willing to spend.

The last time with had the Bacon-Flicks and Hampton-Zinnikers over, Chris looked at my chainsaw for me. It had an oil leak, and was altogether Not Right. He opened it up, fiddled with things, and then put it back together. “It should be ready to go now,” he said. “You just need to tighten these nuts.” Well, apparently I forgot to tighten the nuts.

I put the chainsaw away in its case, and forgot about it for months. On Sunday, though, we took advantage of the cool, sunny weather to tackle yardwork. One of our chores was to prune the lilac. We have a monster of a lilac out by the road, and we’re pruning it a little each year. This is our third year of trimming it, and next year should be the last.

To prune, we use our Japanese saw to hack a limb off at the base of the trunk. These are big limbs, though, three or four inches in diameter and very heavy. After Kris has harvested blossoms, I attack them with the chainsaw.

Well, on Sunday I was midway through the first limb when all of a sudden the chainsaw fell apart. No, seriously — it literally fell apart. The sideplate fell off and the thing stopped running (thank goodness). I was stunned. I also felt like I’d just escaped certain death. Eventually I realized that the nuts that hold the sideplate on had fallen out. (And remembered that I was supposed to have tightened them.) Through sheer luck, I found both nuts, and re-assembled the chainsaw.

I spent ten or fifteen minutes cutting up the remaining lilac branches. Just as I finished my final cut, the chainsaw stopped once more. I thought I saw the chain fly off into the bushes at a high rate of speed, and I thought, “Holy cats! I’m lucky to be alive!” In reality, the chain was dangling from the saw — it had kicked off the track. (This is just as dangerous as flying off, but at least it didn’t break.)

“You need to take a chainsaw class,” Kris told me after watching these mishaps. “You’re going to kill yourself with that thing if you don’t.”

She may be right…

On Sunday night, we met Will and Marla for dinner at Gustav’s. We almost didn’t make it.

When I started the car, the gas light was on. (It hadn’t been on the night before.) As we pulled away from the house and started up the hill, my car died almost immediately. “Damn Ford,” I said. I always curse my car when it gives me trouble.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kris.

“It may be out of gas,” I said. “That doesn’t really make sense, though. The gas light wasn’t on yesterday. Fortunately, we were just a few hundred feet from home, so I ran back to get the mower gas can. We got back in the car and started up the hill, but the car died immediately again.

“I’ll get my car,” said Kris. “Just leave your car here. There’s obviously something wrong with it.”

I was still convinced it was just out of gas. I made sure there was no traffic, then put the car in neutral and let it coast backward. While it rolled, I turned the wheel, turning the car to block the road. I opened the door and then gave the car a little push forward, continuing to turn the wheel so that the vehicle pointed downhill. (Basically, I did a three-point turn using gravity and muscle.) I rolled down to our house and parked. Then I tried the engine. It started. I drove around the block to make sure things were okay. They were. We drove off to meet Will and Marla.

Gustav’s isn’t one of my favorite restaurants. I find the selections limiting. Still, the fondue is good (especially with big, soft salty pretzels). Our waitress was a piece of work: brightly painted fingernails, obsequious manner, and an inability to to pass things across the table. When she set out the drink napkins, she sort of tossed them in the general direction they needed to go, but wouldn’t actually set them in front of people. She said things like “Absolutely!” and “Have we decided yet?” When she came back to take our dessert order, she smelled like she’d just smoked a pack of cigarettes.

After dinner, we followed Will and Marla to look at their new house, just past Keizer Sunnyside. It’s a lovely new home built on a hillside. Construction is nearly finished, and they hope to move in by the end of the month (though I keep telling them they won’t be in until June). We walked up the steep stairs to look in the windows. Then Will, on a whim, tried the door. It was open. “Should we go in?” he asked. They’re really not supposed to, but we took a risk. We walked through, admiring the layout and the materials. Will and Marla have selected all the tiles and carpet and paint color. They’ve done a good job.

I look forward to seeing the final product. In June.