I learned today that you should not go to a place like Macy’s to look at socks. That leads to a moment of ‘I’m spending HOW MUCH?’ at the cash register, and too much embarrassment to admit it’s a little out of the budget for foot coverings and tell the cashier you changed your mind. The same goes for thoughts of returning them. “Oh there’s nothing wrong with them. They just didn’t match my… feet.” I mean people don’t shop at Macy’s if they have to worry about their sock budget.

I’ve even thought of asking Andrew to help me out and return them. He could pretend he’s in an old TV show and make up a story about how his wife went overboard on the shopping and…

Okay that’s not exactly made up is it?

The other thing that popped into my head that first night, haunting me from the back of the closet, was my boxes of unsorted photos. I have a lot of pictures, mostly because I needed a digital camera before its time. I liked to take artistic shots wandering the city, and used entire rolls of film on things like street signs, or the produce department in QFC. (The funny thing is every boyfriend I’ve had here has indulged this for me, understanding when I have to stop to take a picture of the walk signal or the different bathroom signs in every Disneyland area.)

I pulled out the boxes when I got home. First I threw out all of the negatives, because when have I ever used old negatives? I got rid of most of the individual folders and undid what I thought was organizing years ago when I put some into unbound photo pages. In the end I was content that they all fit neatly into a single shoebox, without worrying about any kind of order, which I can throw back into the closet and forget about again.

Then Andrew walked in while I was filling up a laundry basket with the contents of my sock drawer.

“Socks?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Holey socks?”

“ALL of the socks!”

“It’s okay, I’ve dated someone who’s OCD, you’re not that bad.”

Now that the sock thing has been resolved, and I’ve said the word ‘socks’ so many times it’s starting to succumb to semantic satiation, it feels rather anti-climatic. Maybe it would feel like more of an accomplishment if I could actually get all of my clothes put away at the same time. Already I’m showing what a horrible mother I’ll be – I live out of my laundry baskets for weeks at a time, and how am I going to convince a child to make their bed when I myself never got an acceptable answer to the question of “Why? You’re just going to sleep in it again.”