My socks and issues

The other day I ended up with half a dozen mismatched socks stuffed up my shirt like some sort of crazy jon and kate plus eight freak sock pregnancy. Roe v Wade v Chris v Me. It was painful.
I have a bin for socks and a bin for underwear but do not have a bin for tights, slips, bathing suits, etc. Every couple of weeks I decide that these items "belong" in one or the other bin. I shove them precariously in and then spend the next few days dismantling all sense of organization by tossing tights, leggings, etc back and forth between the bins trying to find the favorite pair of socks at the bottom of the bin 'til it's all a mess. I live with that mess for about 2 weeks, then pour out the bins and start all over again. I had this great idea the other day to get a THIRD bin for my miscellaneous items. I'm a freakin' genius.
So, it would happen, that I loose socks quite often. And the other day, while packing up my clothes, I gathered together my mismatched socks with loving care. I just couldn't, COULDN'T throw them away. I heard the yurt tell me: "Eliza, you are NOT to pack mismatched socks in the moving van." "Oh, but yurt," I replied, "I won't pack them! Its not that I want to save mere, mismatched socks (though the guilt will rack me), let me just keep them until I move out!" " }:( ," said the yurt.
Please understand. Maybe if I explain myself it will help. Imagine this horror: what if, just think, what IF I threw out all the socks. Put them in a bag and took them to the dump. THEN I pack up my bedroom, move my bed and THEN find the missing socks. Lying there, saying "Here we are! We were here all along! Did you forget about us? Why did you never search for us? Don't you like me?" And then I'd have to THROW THOSE SOCKS OUT. How could one do that to another being? Thinking about this causes my throat to swell up and I start swallowing quickly. That is obviously the worst.
Just plain loosing one of the socks is still pretty miserable. I think of that great gray pair with the silver thread running in circles around the edges. My mother gave those to my in my christmas stocking one year. And I just loose one of them? What does that say about my love for my mother? And then I have to relive that guilt double - throwing away its perfectly useful twin? In the trashcan? I might as well throw my ma in the trashcan.
Think of it this way - would you, upon losing your car keys (which I did this week), throw away your car? Oh, might as well have it towed, you say to yourself. Or, upon not being able to find your car in the mall parking lot, just toss the keys in the trashcan and hop on the bus? No, how silly! Neither can I throw away a perfectly good sock while there is still hope of finding its pair! Obviously!
So these thoughts were running through my mind as Chris tried to snatch the mismatched socks, poor orphan, mismatched socks, singular instead of double because of MY carelessness, and throw them in the trash. I couldn't let him. I shoved them all up under my shirt and doubled over to protect them from his clutch-y, grasp-y hands. He didn't seem to understand the obvious - only upon moving, clearing out your house entirely, are you able to throw away those mismatched socks. Duh.

Um. I packed the mismatched socks. It was kind of an accident. I'm sure I'll throw them away when I get to the yurt. Yurt and Chris will not be pleased...

Step 2 -

don't panic.

Step 1 - get rid of crap

I am somewhat cheap, so I don't know how I came by all this stuff. One thing is obvious, I didn't buy most of it. Because its all crap. Maybe it didn't start out its life as crap, and maybe only under my care did it become crap, but crap it is. Two wing-back chairs, one with all the fabric ripped off, exposing its batting and horsehair innards like some sort of sick upholstery/boulangerie nightmare. Four pillows, all about an inch thick. Four stools. I have no accompanying stool-height table.
"Oh, I just don't know where all this stuff came from!," said Eliza. Liar.
You have secret hoarder-like tendencies!
Think back, Eliza - where did you get those horrible pillows? You know. They were piled forlornly on top of your mother's basement freezer. On the freezer. In the BASEMENT. Which means nobody wanted them anymore. They were useless. "Oh, pillows," you said. "How nice." The stools - you found them on big-trash day (like christmas to my hoarding-kin). "Stools! Perfectly good stools!" And the chairs... All I got to say about that is that they were smelly, too big for my apartment, required a hopeless amount of work, but when it came down to it, I couldn't bare to just leave them in that big empty house after being loved for 50 years. They were pouting at me. Sad, little chairs.
So I took them.
However, I am changing. I have got to change. Yurt livin' demands it! "Throw away the crap," said the yurt. "Oh, no, yurt, I couldn't. THROW away? Yurt - have you heard of Freecycle? Would that be acceptable?" And with the blessing of the yurt, I have freecycled so much junk. I've got people lined up to take my crap. Hahahaha... joke's on them. Suckers. Take my crap. You are lower than me, scum, collecting things from my front porch like empty CD and DVD cases, books, cat-scratched couches and dysfunctional end-tables. I am reformed - I have pledged to live in an anonymous, clutter-free, swedish-style home.


(but fellow comrades - please love the stools, the couch, the stained and dirty rugs, the worn and unworn books - my beloved junk. you thought you were getting a good home with me, dear crap, a second lease on life after everyone else discarded you. and now, i, too, leave you. i see your sad face as i deposit you on the porch to be picked up... however, have cheer! though you know it not, i do not abandon you, only leave you in the care of someone with space or time or a suspect mental condition. you will be safe.)

For I am yurt livin'. And on my way to being crap-free.