Socks Laundry Quotes

That was the summer I taught myself how to do laundry. There are some socks that shouldn’t be washed by your mom.

Sometimes I wonder, that one missing sock after doing laundry, is the smart one. After being unhappy for so long, it finally walks away from a frayed, worn-out relationship.

It’s like having one red sock in a load of white laundry. One red sock, and nothing is ever white again.

And Leah’s also into slash fanfiction, which got me curious enough to poke around the internet and find some last summer. I couldn’t believe how much there was to choose from: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy hooking up in thousands of ways in every broom closet at Hogwarts. I found the ones with decent grammar and stayed up reading all night. It was a weird couple of weeks. That was the summer I taught myself how to do laundry. There are some socks that shouldn’t be washed by your mom.

NO MUSE IS GOOD MUSE To be an Artist you need talent, as well as a wife who washes the socks and the children, and returns phone calls and library books and types. In other words, the reason there are so many more Men Geniuses than Women Geniuses is not Genius. It is because Hemingway never joined the P.T.A. And Arthur Rubinstein ignored Halloween. Do you think Portnoy's creator sits through children's theater matinees--on Saturdays? Or that Norman Mailer faced 'driver's ed' failure, chicken pox or chipped teeth? Fitzgerald's night was so tender because the fender his teen-ager dented happened when Papa was at a story conference. Since Picasso does the painting, Mrs. Picasso did the toilet training. And if Saul Bellow, National Book Award winner, invited thirty-three for Thanksgiving Day dinner, I'll bet he had help. I'm sure Henry Moore was never a Cub Scout leader, and Leonard Bernstein never instructed a tricycler On becoming a bicycler just before he conducted. Tell me again my anatomy is not necessarily my destiny, tell me my hang-up is a personal and not a universal quandary, and I'll tell you no muse is a good muse unless she also helps with the laundry.

She's come to realize that life is a bit like doing laundry--you have to separate the darks from the lights. One's not necessarily better than the other--they're just different. They have different needs, require different levels of care. She knows plenty of customers who don't give it much thought and throw all their laundry in together, and maybe that's the chaotic part of life that just happens, that no matter how hard you try, you can't always keep things separate. A red sock gets mixed in with a load of whites, or a delicate black top gets washed in hot water by accident. These things happen. All you can do is learn from it and move on. Tell your husband to enjoy his pink underwear, give your shrunken top to your little sister or niece. But it doesn't mean that you stop sorting your laundry. You keep sorting--lights from darks, darks from lights--and hope for the best.

Welcome to the real world of marriage, where hairs are always on the sink and little white spots cover the mirror, where arguments center on which way the toilet paper comes off and whether the lid should be up or down. It is a world where shoes do not walk to the closet and drawers do not close themselves, where coats do not like hangers and socks go AWOL during laundry. In this world, a look can hurt and a word can crush. Intimate lovers can become enemies, and marriage a battlefield.

On Saturday morning, the DJ’s voice comes over the speakers as she’s folding laundry in her room. “All right, listeners,” he says, “I’ve got something special for you this morning. Normally we don’t take requests in advance, but this particular caller has been so loyal to us that when she called last week and asked if we’d play a song today, we decided to make an exception.” Oh. Oh, no. “This one’s for you, August. Jane says, ‘Just in case.’” “Love of My Life” starts to play, and August drops her socks on the floor and climbs into bed.

The Denizen of Number 10 is the avatar—the humanoid sock-puppet—of an ancient and undying intelligence who regards mere humanity much as we might regard a hive of bees. Our lives are of no individual concern to Him, but He likes honey.

The dirty laundry of our confessed sin belongs in the Lord’s laundry hamper; for there He will toss them like mismatched socks as far as the east is from the west.

I can’t believe he’s going along with this.” She flops on her bed, then wrinkles her forehead and stares at the mattress. “Did you make my bed?” “Yes,” I say sheepishly, but she doesn’t seem pissed. I’d already warned her that my OCD might rear its incredibly tidy head every now and then, and so far she hasn’t batted an eye when it happens. The only items on her don’t-touch-or-I’ll-fuck-you-up list are her shoes and her iTunes music library. “Wait, but you didn’t fold my laundry?” She mock gasps. “What the hell, Grace? I thought we were friends.” I stick out my tongue. “I’m not your maid. Fold your own damn laundry.” Daisy’s eyes gleam. “So you’re telling me you can look at that basket overflowing with fresh-from-the-dryer clothes—” she gestures to the basket in question “—and you aren’t the teensiest bit tempted to fold them? All those shirts…forming wrinkles as we speak. Lonely socks…longing for their pairs—” “Let’s fold your laundry,” I blurt out. A gale of laughter overtakes her small body. “That’s what I thought.

It does not come from the fact that women are naturally more able to perceive dirty laundry or that men are blind to housework but from the fact that perception has a social dimension and is shaped by the gendered division of labor: women perceive dirty socks more because they are the ones in charge of doing laundry.

You know what I love? The spaces between I love you. The tap of your fork against the plate and how my cup of wine clicks against our table. The scratchy voice coming from the radio in the other room. The quiet sound of your hand reaching across the table and whispering over mine. How your voice sounds like your mouth on the back of my neck. The soft murmur of our easy conversation. Between these quiet Tuesday night routines, following every comma and right after every pause for breath, is I, love, and you. In the middle of every I love you is a sink full of dishes, whisper of socked feet tangled in white sheets, and gentle kisses against curved cheeks. We lyric ourselves into the laundry that needs to be finished, into the ends of every smile that follows me repeating your name. We write ourselves into the grocery bags we need to carry, the cracks running up our rented walls, the sides of the bed we choose to drag up the sails of heavy eyed dreams. Like the spaces between our fingers, in the spaces between I, love, and you, we wait. The in-betweens have always been my favorite.

there’s no way I can sleep in any position with so much still unwritten about the glory of basements, where, with all the promise in crock pot boxes, small animals go to die, piles of laundry hide the machines, rusted tools fall into other rusted tools giving way to unsung sculpture, soiled playing cards and unmatched socks strewn atop a punched-out screen door make a shaggy parquet; and a famished, leggy fluorescent tube barely winks on the entire scene.

Death is the Santa Claus of the adult world. Except Santa Claus in reverse. The guy who takes all the presents away. Big bag over the shoulder, climbing up the chimney carrying everything in a person's life, and taking off, eight-reindeered, from the roof. Sleigh loaded down with memories and wineglassesand pots and pans and sweaters and grilled cheese sandwiches and Kleenexes and text messages and ugly houseplants and calico cat fur and half-used lipstick and laundry that never got done and letters you went to the trouble of handwriting but never sent and birth certificates and broken necklaces and disposable socks with scuffs on the bottom from hospital visits.

men worked fifty, sixty, even seventy or more hours a week; the women worked all the time, with little assistance from labor-saving devices, washing laundry, ironing shirts, mending socks, turning collars, sewing on buttons, mothproofing woolens, polishing furniture, sweeping and washing floors, washing windows, cleaning sinks, tubs, toilets, and stoves, vacuuming rugs, nursing the sick, shopping for food, cooking meals, feeding relatives, tidying closets and drawers, overseeing paint jobs and household repairs, arranging for religious observances, paying bills and keeping the family’s books while simultaneously attending to their children’s health, clothing, cleanliness, schooling, nutrition, conduct, birthdays, discipline, and morale.

Enzo showed a flair for words early and wrote his first story when he was seven, entitled "The horrible sock that smelled bad and ate Pomona Falls except for my house," in which a large sock, mutated by its own horrible unwashed smell, started eating its way through the contents of an entire town and was thwarted only when the heroes Enzo and Magdy first punched it into submission and then threw it into a swimming pool filled with laundry soap.

There was a knock on the bedroom door and Romeo stiffened. “What!” he yelled. “I hope no one’s naked, ‘cause I’m coming in!” Braeden hollered. A few seconds later, the door opened and he stepped inside. One of his hands covered his eyes. “Is it safe?” he asked. I giggled. “Is that a no for tacos?” Romeo shook his head and rolled his eyes. “We’re dressed, man.” Braeden dropped the hand over his eyes and he zeroed in on me. It took everything in me not to shrink back from embarrassment. He came across the carpeting and held out my glasses. “Here,” he said. “I figured you might need these.” Ah, that explained why everything still looked so blurry. I slid them on and smiled as my sight adjusted back to normal. I noticed Braeden was soaking wet. “Oh!” I exclaimed. “You have to be freezing!” I rushed around the room, pulling out clothes and socks and tossing them at Braeden’s feet. “Here! Put this stuff on.” “She’s giving away your clothes, man,” Braeden said to Romeo. “Chicks.” He sighed. Braeden shook his head. “You’re dripping on the carpet!” I reminded him. He laughed and went in the bathroom to get dressed. “Just leave your clothes with ours. I’ll wash them for you,” I yelled through the door. He laughed. “Laundry service? Damn! I’m moving in.” Romeo shook his head. I yawned. This entire day was catching up to me. Romeo frowned. “I’ll make everyone leave…” He began. “No!” I exclaimed. “This is your victory party! Go enjoy it. I’ll stay here.” He seemed torn on what to do. Braeden came out wearing Romeo’s clothes (they fit him pretty well) and ran his eyes over me in concern. “You okay?” I nodded. “Did you jump in the pool to get my glasses?” He nodded. “Actually, he jumped in the pool right after I did. In case I needed help towing you out.” Romeo corrected. I glanced at Braeden for confirmation. He shrugged. “What kind of brother would I be if I let you drown?” Without thought, I walked over and wrapped my arms around him. He seemed a little taken aback by my display of affection, but after a minute, he hugged me back. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Anytime, tutor girl.” His voice was soft and his arms tightened around me just slightly. For all his witty humor, sarcastic one-liners, and jokes, Braeden was a really good guy. “We need to teach you to swim.” He observed. I shuddered. “I know how to swim.” “Well, you sank to the bottom like an anchor,” he grumbled.

As I reflect back on all of the years of our family’s life together, what I remember best is not the mountains of dirty dishes and pots and pans and socks left on the floor and piles of laundry. I reflect instead on precious times shared with Clay, the kids, and those we welcomed into our home—snuggling on the couch together, nursing babies and rocking them to sleep, sharing movies and huge bowls of popcorn, comforting children after a nightmare, and all those heartfelt kisses and cards that said “I love you!

Sweeping the dorm soon's it's empty, I'm after dust mice under his bed when I get a smell of something that makes me realize for the first time since I been in the hospital that the big dorm full of beds, sleeps forty grown men, has always been sticky with a thousand other smells - smells of germicide, zinc ointment, and foot powder, smell of piss and sour old-man manure, of Pablum and eyewash, of musty shorts and socks musty even when they're fresh back from the laundry, the stiff odor of starch in the linen, the acid stench of morning mouths, the banana smell of machine oil, and sometimes the smell of singed hair - but never before now, before he came in, the man smell of dust and dirt from the open fields, and sweat, and work.

What horrified Hillis, unlike many a college undergraduate, wasn’t his roommate’s hygiene. It wasn’t that the roommate didn’t wash the socks; he did. The problem was what came next. The roommate pulled a sock out of the clean laundry hamper. Next he pulled another sock out at random. If it didn’t match the first one, he tossed it back in. Then he continued this process, pulling out socks one by one and tossing them back until he found a match for the first. With just 10 different pairs of socks, following this method will take on average 19 pulls merely to complete the first pair, and 17 more pulls to complete the second. In total, the roommate can expect to go fishing in the hamper 110 times just to pair 20 socks. It was enough to make any budding computer scientist request a room transfer.

One day I went to the basement to do the laundry and found one of his socks was stuffed with bloody handkerchiefs. Seven of them. I laid them out one by one and used the tricks he taught me. I waited by the washer for its full cycle, hoping it would work. All seven came out clean, but my throat stayed tight, my stomach ached. I folded them, one by one, in little squares. I carried them upstairs on the top of the pile. Gramps was in the dining room when I got there, pouring himself a glass of whiskey. He eyed the folded laundry. “How’ve you been feeling, Gramps?” He cleared his throat. “So-so,” he said. “Have you been to the doctor?” He snorted—my suggestion was ridiculous—and I remembered a time in junior high when I came home from health class and talked to him about the dangers of smoking. “This conversation is very American,” he’d said. “We live in America.” “That we do, Sailor. That we do. But wherever in the world we live, something’s gonna get us in the end. Something gets us every time.” I hadn’t known then how to argue his point. I should have tried harder.

NO MUSE IS GOOD MUSE -by Rochelle Distelheim To be an Artist you need talent, as well as a wife who washes the socks and the children, and returns phone calls and library books and types. In other words, the reason there are so many more Men Geniuses than Women Geniuses is not Genius. It is because Hemingway never joined the P.T.A. And Arthur Rubinstein ignored Halloween. Do you think Portnoy's creator sits through children's theater matinees--on Saturdays? Or that Norman Mailer faced 'driver's ed' failure, chicken pox or chipped teeth? Fitzgerald's night was so tender because the fender his teen-ager dented happened when Papa was at a story conference. Since Picasso does the painting, Mrs. Picasso did the toilet training. And if Saul Bellow, National Book Award winner, invited thirty-three for Thanksgiving Day dinner, I'll bet he had help. I'm sure Henry Moore was never a Cub Scout leader, and Leonard Bernstein never instructed a tricycler On becoming a bicycler just before he conducted. Tell me again my anatomy is not necessarily my destiny, tell me my hang-up is a personal and not a universal quandary, and I'll tell you no muse is a good muse unless she also helps with the laundry. -Rochelle Distelheim ===============================

As I became older, I was given many masks to wear. I could be a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, with long hair in a queue to be pulled by pranksters; a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb; a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet; a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming 'Banzai' on my way to my death; a peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water; an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good; a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret; a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave; a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets; a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe; a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo; an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful; one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader; an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life; a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives with the slogan 'but wait--there's more' as the commercial segued to show another free gift; a chef serving up dog stew, a trick on the unsuspecting diner; a bad driver swerving into the next lane, exactly as could be expected; a horny exchange student here for a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleader; a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues; a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high and batting the ball with a wicked spin; a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall, before taking a polite bow; a teen computer scientist, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the company stock crashes; a gangster in sunglasses and a tight suit, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob; an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change over the counter to the black patrons; a businessman with a briefcase of cash bribing a congressman, a corrupting influence on the electoral process; a salaryman on my way to work, crammed into the commuter train and loyal to the company; a shady doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body mapping the flow of life energy through a multitude of colored points; a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut, serving as a teaching assistant with an incomprehensible accent, scribbling on the chalkboard; an automobile enthusiast who customizes an imported car with a supercharged engine and Japanese decals in the rear window, cruising the boulevard looking for a drag race; a illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, defying death only to crowd into a New York City tenement and work as a slave in a sweatshop. My mother and my girl cousins were Madame Butterfly from the mail order bride catalog, dying in their service to the masculinity of the West, and the dragon lady in a kimono, taking vengeance for her sisters. They became the television newscaster, look-alikes with their flawlessly permed hair. Through these indelible images, I grew up. But when I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my own reflection because it was not like what I saw around me. Over the years, the world opened up. It has become a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural fragments, arranged and rearranged without plan or order.

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of

God was still smiling when he went into the guest room for his suitcase. He looked in the closet and under the perfectly made bed. He even pulled out the drawers of the one armoire on the far side of the room, but couldn’t find it. He was about to go back downstairs and ask Day when he turned down the long hall and walked into Day’s master bedroom. His suitcase was tucked neatly in the corner. He pulled it out but immediately knew it was empty. He looked in the first dresser but those were Day’s clothes. The second identical dresser was on the other side and God did a double take at his few toiletries that were neatly aligned on top. God rubbed his hand on the smooth surface and felt his heart clench at how domestic this looked. His and his dressers…really. God yanked off his T-shirt and threw it in the hamper along with Day’s items. He washed up quickly and went back to his dresser to put on a clean shirt. His mouth dropped when he pulled out the dresser drawer. His shirts were neatly folded and placed in an organized arrangement. God went through all five drawers. His underwear, socks, shirts, sweats, all arranged neatly and in its own place. He dropped down on the bed and thought for a minute. At first he was joking, but Day really was domesticating him. Was God ready for that? Sure he loved Day, he’d take a bullet for him, but was he ready to play house? He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and middle finger at the slight tension forming behind his eyes. God had been completely on his own since he was eighteen. He’d never shared space with anyone—hell, no one had ever wanted to. Fuck. Just last night Day was getting ready to fuck mini Justin Bieber, now he was cooking and cleaning for him and doing his damn laundry. He tried his best to shake off his anxiety. He never used the word love lightly. He meant what he’d said last night. God had only loved three people his entire life and for the past four years only one of them returned that love. Should he really tuck tail and run just because this was new territory? Hell no. All he did was unpack my suitcase. No big deal. He was just being hospitable. Damn sure is better than that seedy hotel. “My boyfriend’s just trying to make me comfortable.” He smirked and tried the term on his tongue again. “I have a boyfriend.” “Get your ass down here and stop overthinking shit! Dinner is getting cold!” Day yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

This is exactly why I got this book. It was at the 99 cents store for only 99 cents. I get everything for 99 cents. I get my taking-over-the-world-books for 99 cents. I get my cups for 99 cents. I get my socks for 99 cents. I get my dental floss for 99 cents. I get my laundry detergent for 99 cents. I get my sunglasses for 99 cents. I get my tomatoes for 99 cents. I get my pencils for 99 cents. I get my gardening tools for 99 cents. I get my salsa lessons for 99 cents. I get my melons for 99 cents. I get my shoe polish for 99 cents. I get my nose-hair-removal kits for 99 cents. I get my beach balls for 99 cents. I get my mood rings for 99 cents. I get my celebrity star maps for 99 cents. I get my GMO pudding Popsicles for 99 cents. I get my superhero hairbrushes for 99 cents. I get my onions for 99 cents. I get my discontinued comic books for 99 cents. I get my lawn furniture for 99 cents. I get my lifetime supply of toothpicks for 99 cents. I get everything for 99 cents at the 99 cents store. . . .

hatch our survival plan in the coolest place we could find. We made our way into the cluttered room at the windowed front of the deckhouse—what our boat builders back in Hong Kong called the “lavish grand salon” in their sales brochures. With us, it was more like the messy rumpus room. True, the room had, as advertised, “a curved couch, sleek teak paneling, and hardwood cabinetry with a built-in sink.” But the sink had dirty dishes and empty soda bottles in it, the paneled walls were cluttered with a collection of my parents’ favorite treasures (including a conquistador helmet, a rare African tribal mask, a grog jug shaped like a frog, a rusty cannonball from a Confederate gunboat, a bronze clock covered with cherubs that probably belonged to King Louis XIV, and, in a glass shadow box, a rusty steak knife from the Titanic). There were assorted trinkets, necklaces, and coconut heads suspended from the ceiling. Add a heap of scuba and snorkel gear and assorted socks, shoes, and T-shirts on the floor (the floor is our laundry basket), and our grand salon looked more like a live-in recycling bin. “Have we even seen a map for this treasure hunt?” asked Beck. “Nope. Dad just said we needed to be in the Caymans.” “Then we need to find his map.

potential goals for this space make getting ready in the morning a snap make it easier to put away clothing in the evening and on laundry day get rid of clothing that no longer fits create a new wardrobe make the closet visually appealing quick-toss list any clothing that is stained or ripped shoes that are past their prime clothing left over from the high school years (unless, of course, you’re still in high school) souvenir t-shirts broken jewelry socks without mates underwear that has lost its elasticity dry-cleaner hangers and plastic bags storage containers bins/boxes/baskets that are open-top bins/boxes/baskets with lids double

This project may be preceeded or followed by the clothing organization steps found in the next section of this book. ORGANIZE CLOTHING examples of storage bedroom closet (walk-in or standard) dresser armoire underbed storage boxes trunk or storage ottoman nightstand supplies needed trash bags/recycling bin, donation box, relocation box, fix-it box spray cleaner and cleaning cloth broom and dust pan and/or vacuum storage containers label maker and/or tags to hang from containers/baskets time commitment 4–10 hours quick assessment questions What are the main categories of clothing? What items could be placed in off-season storage? What types of things need quick and instant access? potential goals for this space make getting ready in the morning a snap make it easier to put away clothing in the evening and on laundry day get rid of clothing that no longer fits create a new wardrobe make the closet visually appealing quick-toss list any clothing that is stained or ripped shoes that are past their prime clothing left over from the high school years (unless, of course, you’re still in high school) souvenir t-shirts broken jewelry socks without mates underwear that has lost its elasticity dry-cleaner hangers and plastic bags storage containers bins/boxes/baskets that are open-top bins/boxes/baskets with lids

management, bless their little cotton socks, decided that we needed to be Creative and Innovative and endowed with Silicon Valley start-up style va-va-voom.

From this we might infer that minimizing our pain and suffering when it comes to sorting is all about minimizing the number of things we have to sort. It’s true: one of the best preventives against the computational difficulty of sock sorting is just doing your laundry more often. Doing laundry three times as frequently, say, could reduce your sorting overhead by a factor of nine. Indeed, if Hillis’s roommate stuck with his peculiar procedure but went thirteen days between washes instead of fourteen, that alone would save him twenty-eight pulls from the hamper.

A Tidy and Organized Home… Makes you feel calm. You can relax and unwind in a tidy home. There is space to do things, and you know where everything is. When you walk into a hotel room, you immediately feel a sense of peace because the environment is tidy and organized. Makes you feel healthy. Dust and mold accumulate in messes. Are you always coughing and sneezing? Do you suffer from allergies? It’s probably because you are breathing in all the dirt in your home. Give your home a spring clean and your health issues will improve. Makes you feel in control. How does it feel when you know where everything is? Clutter prevents positive energy from flowing through your home. Remember, energy attaches itself to objects, and negative energy is attracted to mess, which creates exhaustion, stagnation, and exasperation. What does it feel like when negative energy is stuck in your body? You want to lie in bed and shut the world away because everything becomes more difficult and you can’t explain why. Here is how decluttering your house will unlock blocked streams of positive energy: You will become more vibrant. Once you create harmony and order in your home, you will feel more radiant and present. Like acupuncture, which removes imbalances and blockages from the body to create more wellness and dynamism, clearing clutter removes imbalances and blockages from your personal space. When you venture through spaces that have been set ablaze with fresh energy, you are captured by inspiration, and the most attractive parts of your personality come to life. You will get rid of bad habits and introduce good ones. All bad habits have triggers. Do you lie on your bed to watch TV instead of sitting on the couch because you can’t be bothered to fold the laundry that has piled up over the past six months? Or because the bed represents sleep, and when you come home from work and get into bed, you are going to fall asleep instead of doing those important tasks on your to-do list. Once you tidy the couch, coming home from work will allow you to sit on it to watch your favorite TV program but get up once it’s finished and do what you need to do. You will improve your problem-solving skills. When your home has been opened up with a clear space, it’s easier to focus, which provides you with a fresh perspective on your problems. You will sleep better. Are you always tired no matter how much sleep you get? That’s because negative energy is stuck under your bed amongst all that junk you’ve stuffed under there. Once you tidy up your bedroom, you will find that positive energy can flow freely around your room making it easier for you to have a deep and restful sleep. You will have more time. Mess delays you. An untidy house means you are always losing things. You can’t find a shoe, a sock, or your keys, so you waste time searching for them, which makes you late for work or social gatherings. When you declutter your home, you could save about an hour a day because you will no longer need to dig through a stack of items to find things. Your intuition will be stronger. A clear space creates a sense of certainty and clarity. You know where everything is, so you have peace of mind. When you have peace of mind, you can focus on being in the present moment. When you need to make important decisions, you will find it easier to do so. It might take some time to give your home a deep clean, but you won’t be sorry for it once it’s done. Chapter 5: How To Become an Assertive Empath The word assertive means “having or showing a confident and forceful personality.

You’ll find that nearly any habit can be scaled down into a two-minute version: ■ “Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.” ■ “Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.” ■ “Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.” ■ “Fold the laundry” becomes “Fold one pair of socks.” ■ “Run three miles” becomes “Tie my running shoes.

True story: I’m too lazy to even wash my socks. I buy seven or eight pairs and wear them all once, and then I shake them out, sort them by how bad they smell, and wear them again. Then I finally stuff them into the laundry bag and send them off to be washed. Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam. Every so often a sock goes missing, so its partner ends up among the mismatched. I didn’t start wearing them in pairs until after Shen Wei moved in.

Sorting Laundry" Folding clothes, I think of folding you into my life. Our king-sized sheets like tablecloths for the banquets of giants, pillowcases, despite so many washings, seems still holding our dreams. Towels patterned orange and green, flowered pink and lavender, gaudy, bought on sale, reserved, we said, for the beach, refusing, even after years, to bleach into respectability. So many shirts and skirts and pants recycling week after week, head over heels recapitulating themselves. All those wrinkles To be smoothed, or else ignored; they're in style. Myriad uncoupled socks which went paired into the foam like those creatures in the ark. And what's shrunk is tough to discard even for Goodwill. In pockets, surprises: forgotten matches, lost screws clinking the drain; well-washed dollars, legal tender for all debts public and private, intact despite agitation; and, gleaming in the maelstrom, one bright dime, broken necklace of good gold you brought from Kuwait, the strangely tailored shirt left by a former lover… If you were to leave me, if I were to fold only my own clothes, the convexes and concaves of my blouses, panties, stockings, bras turned upon themselves, a mountain of unsorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed.

The dirty laundry of our confessed sin belongs in the Lord’s laundry hamper; for there He will toss our trespasses like mismatched socks as far as the east is from the west.

I Imagine Them turning some dog-eared page tapping out a drum beat on the dash sorting the laundry digging for a matching sock buried in deep pockets breaking an egg on the side of a bowl fingering guitar strings Where are they now? tenderly holding a pen to paper furiously moving through air in concert with your conversation resting assuredly on the back of a chair oh to be the steering wheel or the spoon to have your palms pressed solidly upon me the full fan of your fingers curved to the slope of my shoulders oh to be warmed to be wrapped in hope to be healed by the laying on of your hands

that come from wearing a uniform, another downfall is the need for a highly efficient laundry system at home. There are five days of school per week. So I have five shirts, five pants and five pairs of socks that fit me. The key here is the part about them fitting me. About half of my entire wardrobe is made up of school-related stuff. I have some shirts from last year that fit, but are a little too snug. I have pants that are the same way.

Holy is the dish and drain The soap and sink, and the cup and plate And the warm wool socks, and cold white tile Showerheads and good dry towels And frying eggs sound like psalms With a bit of salt measured in my palm It’s all a part of a sacrament As holy as a day is spent Holy is the busy street And cars that boom with passion’s beat And the check out girl, counting change And the hands that shook my hands today And hymns of geese fly overhead And stretch their wings like their parents did Blessed be the dog, that runs in her sleep To catch that wild and elusive thing Holy is the familiar room And the quiet moments in the afternoon And folding sheets like folding hands To pray as only laundry can I’m letting go of all I fear Like autumn leaves of earth and air For summer came and summer went As holy as a day is spent Holy is the place I stand To give whatever small good I can And the empty page, and the open book Redemption everywhere I look Unknowingly we slow our pace In the shade of unexpected grace And with grateful smiles and sad lament As holy as a day is spent And morning light sings “Providence” As holy as a day is spent

Love was what happened after the first flush of lust had worn off and you found out they hated doing the dishes and never put their socks in the laundry basket, and yet you still wanted to be with them. Love was looking after them when they thought they were dying from a measly cold, and putting up with their snoring, and letting them watch the rugby although there was a show you were missing on the other side. Wasn’t it?