My apartment was a sty this week.

Wednesday, March 07, 2001

My apartment was a sty this week. No, literally. Crumbs and Biz bleach crystals littered my kitchen table, dishes were piled up and I had to carefully navigate the paperwork on my floor every time I moved from the couch – which wasn’t often. (Right now my landlord is appalled.)

I was having a down weekend – one of those times when you can’t motivate yourself to brush your teeth and wash your face. (I’m sure I’m attracting every available man in Austin with my living conditions descriptions so far.) It wasn’t that I was depressed, it was just that I’d rather be watching the Trading Spaces marathon on TLC, supplemented with taped episodes of CSI and Survivor.

(As an aside, did anyone else watch Trading Spaces? Is it me or are those decorators from another planet – one outside of our solar system? Rare was the occasion when a couple actually liked what had been done to a room of their choice. I counted more tears of horror than approving applause and laughter at the transformations. One woman actually said, "I hate that I’m a crier." Hey, go ahead and cry! I’d cry too if my room was painted day-glo pea green and jagged pieces of pounded metal were placed on my table as place mats. But I digress.)

At one point I couldn’t tell where I ended and my futon couch began.

And then, I spied a purchase I made earlier in the week, sitting quietly in the corner. It was a filing cabinet. With it I had hoped to rid my living room of some of the clutter and, on a grander scale, my life of some of its disorder. As the weekend progressed, that filing cabinet loomed larger and larger, until the guilt it instilled in me led me to slither off the couch and onto the floor.

Fighting my urge to return to my comfy pillow-laden couch, I began to sort through piles of paperwork. Soon, I could see progress. Carefully and neatly, I transferred stacks of receipts, bank statements and copies of paid bills into file folders and put them into that glorious cabinet. I suddenly felt so organized, so smart, so capable.

Eventually I extricated my backside from the floor and moved into the kitchen, where I did my dishes after too many days to mention (ahem), put away my laundry supplies and wiped off my table. I found energy I was sure an hour before I didn’t have. Ahhhh. I was reminded that I love order and cleanliness.

On the plus side (or is it?), I guess I’m getting over that perfectionist thing, in my housekeeping at least. Thankfully, I now can walk from one end of my living room to the other, without stepping on one credit card offer or bill. Hooray!

After I was finished, I soon realized that from now on comes the hardest part of organizing – maintaining it. Uh, yeah. Stay tuned.

Dale Earnhardt was more than a NASCAR driver

When my uncle came to my home town of Benson for my grandpa’s funeral, he told me a story about Dale Earnhardt that I had never heard before. It really struck me, and so I thought I’d share. My uncle is a HUGE Earnhardt fan. He flies a black number three flag on race days and I believe the only t-shirts he wears are Dale in nature. He was horribly affected by Earnhardt’s death, just three days before his father (my grandpa) died.

Anyway, he said that years ago, when my cousin Adam (the one who died of muscular dystrophy) was still alive, he attended an Earnhardt autograph signing with my uncle. They got there early and were close to the front of the line. As they waited, Earnhardt saw Adam, stood up and walked to him. According to my uncle, he said, "I’ve signed 10,000 autographs with this pen. I want you to have it." He gave Adam the pen.

I guess this story surprised me. I knew Earnhardt was a terrific driver, but I never knew that he was a giving person. Since his death, reports have come out about all of the charitable organizations he gave money to. A new facet of a man was discovered after his death.

And that’s the point, isn’t it. If we give, we don’t need to advertise it. The people who reap the benefits of our charity know and that’s enough. Shining a light on our good deeds only obscures the natural illumination.