Loose Ends
Archeology 101
Susan Nienow

My life is layered, and it's all on top of my desk. If I need last Friday's crossword puzzle, and it's Thursday, then the newspaper section is about six days worth of papers under the pile on my desk. Or maybe only five since I didn't work at my desk on Sunday.

Of course, that's a poor example, as pointed out by my other half. When was the last time I "needed" a crossword puzzle, he wondered. I didn't think that required an answer.

I keep things in colored folders and am very good at making new folders for everything. The layering happens because I open my folder on shade gardening and spread things out to work on a plan for a path through the woods. But then, my friend Sarah calls with a question about tennis so I get out the tennis folder and put it on top of the opened shade gardening papers.

I take a time out to eat lunch and work on Tuesday's crossword puzzle. It goes on top of tennis. I check my e-mail and print information on upcoming gardening and landscaping courses.

The phone rings so I add it to the pile and reach for the folder on an ongoing battle with the phone company. That disagreement requires some research so I leave the folder open.

My other half puts the mail on my desk. I quickly weed out the bills and other "very important papers" and put them on "his" chair, but add the two catalogs, magazine and coupon booklet to my pile.

When my other half asks what is happening with the phone company, I think back to the day I called their business office - Monday - no, that was a holiday. Tuesday. It's now Friday so I pick up half the pile and work my way down. Aha!

It's just a question of sifting through the layers of my life until I get an answer. My other half wondered what happened to using colored folders for different subjects - green for gardening, yellow for tennis. I ran out of colors. So the phone company is in a red folder, and so is the one with column ideas. That one is empty. Not because I have no ideas, but I think I may have inadvertently put that stuff in the wrong folder because I can't find it.

My closet is a cultural anthropologist's dream. Aren't they interested in society's customs? Stored in the back of the closet is my grandmother's three-mink stole. Remember those - the ones with mouths that clip onto the tails of others? And those little feet...

I can't throw it away, don't think Goodwill would appreciate it, and have never sold anything on eBay, so there it hangs. And what do I do with ancestral costume jewelry? I still have scarves I used as belts for my hip-hugger bell bottoms in the 70s. "Why?" my other half wondered. Because they don't take up any room. And they are the only belts I have that still fit.