Cluttergate

As the poster child of creative clutter, I recently received a seismic jolt that may lead me to a more Spartan decor. I was watching my bi-monthly dose of COPS, when I realized that most of the psychopathic, drug-impaired, rap-sheeted men had clean apartments. Really, clean apartments. Okay, maybe a stray knife or empty bottle of J.B. strewn here and there, but still the place was Martha Stewart ready.

Tony Soprano's home? Immaculate. Al Capone's cell? Dust free. On the other hand, my apartment has officially been designated a HAZMAT area.  In essence, a tribute to my inability to divest myself of anything even remotely interesting. Frankly, I didn't have very good role models.

I lived in a house with 4 older brothers. We occupied the top floor -- and honestly, it was more like a poorly -run fraternity house. As the youngest, I was in a perpetual state of being hazed.  The pecking order meant that I got the worst bed.  This was the kind of bed that folds if you sit anywhere on it. My body acclimated and I now look like a U.  The room was 100% Oscar Madison.  But ironically, like a great geologist, I knew under which layer and strata I could find what I wanted.  Disorder ordered messes witih your mind.

I once opened a drawer and found the carcass of a ice cream cone. It was a CSI dream -- small rivers of Vanilla dust where the frozen treat used to be. The top floor was our version of Hell's Kitchen. Where else could you find Monopoly's Baltic Avenue card used as a bookmark for a Dr, Strange comic book. In our house, nobody ever landed on Baltic Avenue. It was no man's land.

Part of me wants to go totally Zen. An apartment devoid of everything but a few coats of Apache White and a cleverly positioned 18th century coal scuttle.   But I have the soul of a collector.  A trash collector.  Actually, I see the value of even the most mundane  of items.  Like asparagus tongs. A gravy separator.  Or an original Marky Maypo breakfast companion. 

I have over a thousand books.  Every one at the ready.  I once tossed "A World Lit Only by Fire:  The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester.   The next week, I was writing a essay on Sir Thomas More and I needed that book.  I even knew the page.  107.  I'm sure I could throw out I'm OK, You're OK, but there may be a time when I need to know if someone is OK.  I did toss out John Jakes North and South because a friend told me the North wins and ruined the ending for me.

I don't have a coffee table, but I do have coffee table books.  I have enough National Geographics to fill a small country. That would be Vatican City. 0.2 square miles and a population of 769 and a guy with a big hat.  I even have a book that tells you what books you should have in your collection.  I have miles of GQs, New Yorkers, and Esquires and a stack of Registered Reps -- the voice of the brokerage industry. 

And I have a box full of books on how to organize clutter.  I just wish I could find it.