Clothes purge.

The corner of our bedroom has been an out-of-control pile of laundry for a long time. We have laundry bins there for whites, colors, and linens; those are well-maintained and regularly emptied. Our problem was the fourth bin, originally designed for clothes needing special treatment (such as dry cleaning). Eventually it overflowed to take over the whole corner with a huge and jumbled mishmash of dry cleaning, mending, outgrown things, hopelessly stained things, and random regular clothes which landed there after falling out of a laundry basket or getting kicked out of the way or something.

Last Friday, Michael saw a mouse. That provided immediate incentive to get our damn clothes off the damn floor, so this weekend we tackled the whole pile. We packed up the clothes into organized bundles of dry cleaning, Goodwill donations, rags, and trash.

I then decided to tackle my closet. I pulled out all the clothes that I rarely wear and tried them on. If something didn't fit or I didn't like it, I put it in the Goodwill pile. And the Goodwill pile got huge.

What struck me, as the rejected clothes piled higher and higher, was the number of things in my closet that I had never liked. I wore them, not because they looked good on me or because I thought they were pretty, but because they were my clothes. The biggest offender in this category: Empire-waisted dresses. I have big breasts and a short torso and a belly, and Empire waists are possibly the least flattering clothing style possible for my body type. I put, like, four of them into the Goodwill pile. Halfway through pulling one of them over my head to try it on, I stopped and realized, "You've never liked this dress. Why would you care whether it fits?" I had no answer.

Why did I wear so many clothes that I thought were ugly? Because I hate shopping, and I didn't look beyond the basics of "what respectable, not-too-expensive clothes do Lands End and Eddie Bauer have, that I could wear to work?", and I didn't return frumpy things that my mother bought me. Because I just bought the first affordable thing I saw when I shopped, instead of stopping to consider questions like "Would another style be more flattering?" or "Shouldn't you look further and find one that isn't acrylic?" Because they were clothes. Because I didn't want to look at myself too closely. Because I didn't really think I could look any better than I did. Because I didn't think it mattered if I hated the way I looked. Because I was on crutches and in chronic pain and shopping was the last thing I wanted to spend time and energy on. Because, in short, of a variety of things that don't make much sense in retrospect.

I haven't worn those things for a long time, but I didn't throw them out. They just hung out there in the back of the closet. It turns out that crushed in with the stuff I didn't really like were a few pieces that I do like, and totally forgot about because I couldn't find them. Like a couple of long-sleeved tailored blouses, one in deep royal blue and one in dark red. I had pretty much written off button-down shirts because they never look right on my chest, but these two fit great and look great. Huh.

I'd like to pare down even more. I'd like to get rid of everything I have that doesn't look good on me or make me feel good, even if it means that I have to do laundry a lot more often for a while. Because, really, wouldn't it be better to have five outfits that really work for me rather than twenty outfits that make me feel blah?

You were looking for a timesink, right?

Some time ago, my friends page passed around an online U.S. geography game in which you had to drag states onto a blank map. Your score depended on how many you put in the right place and your average number of miles off the correct location.

I found a new page of games, in which that particular game is Difficulty Level 3. Out of 9 levels.

On Level 6, you drag the states into place and then, if you are correct, they disappear. So you can never derive clues from relative placement, no matter how far into the game you go.

On Level 9, the states need to be rotated to the correct orientation and enlarged or shrunk to the right size before you can slot them into place. Also, they don't bother giving you any of the names except (magnaminously enough) Wyoming and Colorado, which would otherwise be impossible to distinguish. And the states disappear once you've placed them correctly, taking away all relative placement clues.

I made it up to Level 9 and did pretty well (3 errors each of two times, in just over 5 minutes on the second run through), but I think I only did that well because I'd spent a bunch of time on Levels 3-8 beforehand. I had the map very firmly fixed in my head by the time I tackled the hardest version.

It helps that the major U.S. rivers are included on the background. At first I wasn't really attending to them - then I realized that, of course, rivers commonly serve as state borderlines. After that, my accuracy of placement improved quite a bit.

An especially nice thing is that the site isn't U.S.-centric. They've got a whole range of these games, ranging from Canadian provinces to African countries. I went through the Canada ones too - they're a lot easier because there are just so many distinctive coastline features. (Although I do pity Canadian children assigned to draw a map of Canada for Social Studies class.)

So I've wasted a lot of my time on this, tonight. Now it's your turn.