ROOM FOR A PONY

I called Metro.

We in Portland have a recycling hotline where you can call at any time and ask a real human being whether this or that can be recycled and where. Here’s the number: 503-234-3000. Staffed by humans from 8:30 to 5 on weekdays.

They’ll either tell you exactly where to take an item, or supply you with another number. They suggested I call Far West Fibers, a recycling business that has three area plant locations and three depots where people can take their recycling. (And yes, we do have curbside collection in Portland, but they don’t take everything. We dedicated Portland green-heads routinely sort our other stuff in our garages and schlep it to one of these places in our cars.)

I both called and emailed Far West Fibers to ask if they take pens in their rigid recycling. Both answers came back Yes, we do. Even after I pointed out that most pens have at least two or three different plastics going on, plus metal nibs and sometimes the clips or the whole caps are metal, they still said yes. And they didn’t say anything about taking them apart and dividing up the different materials, either.

I don’t really understand that, but I’m letting go. I made the inquiry — I’m not just throwing things willy nilly into recycling bins for the sorting staff to deal with. I called the professionals and if they’ve given me the wrong information, that’s just going to have to be their problem. I’m very willing to recycle, but good grief, I can’t spend every waking hour of my life on it. I’m just an ordinary person, not a scientist. I have to rely on others for expertise outside my field.

Goodbye, dead pens. Thank you for your service.

Well…. if I’m not posting as often as I’d like, it’s because the agreement (between Lindi and me) was that I would not spend all my time blogging about decluttering instead of, say…. decluttering — which would be easy to do because guess which one is more fun?

I’ve quit bothering to clear a place among the pens on the table — now I just eat on top of them.

I do clear a place for Lindi though .

But look here, I am making progress — this fat bagfull is going out to the garage for a future in recycling.

It might look, to the naked person’s eye, like I’m not getting anywhere — but it’s just that every time I think I’ve found every pen in the house, I come across another cache of them — huddling together fearfully in some unseen cranny — under the edge of a magazine; behind the blinds on a window ledge; in an overlooked tomato can behind a plant.

And that’s another thing. No more tomato cans. Or metallic red baking powder cans, or Prince Edward Olives cans. I’m going for an all-new look, and food cans are out, no matter how I might have once liked the Contadina girl on the tomato paste or Popeye on the spinach. I’m sick of that. Too sixties. This is almost the next sixties.

I was discussing my pen situation with a co-worker who, it turns out, has the same problem — or thinks she does. (It soon became evident that she has no idea of the scale I’m talking about — but never mind.) She shared some insights with me, however, and shed some light on the problem. “You can’t leave two of them alone in a dark room,” she revealed. She once left just a couple of pens in a box on a closet shelf and next time she looked, the box was full — of more pens, pens she’d never seen before.

“And they’re not at all discriminating about inter-breeding. That’s why so many of them don’t work,” she explained, answering one of my most perplexing questions.

No wonder. Look at that big sack of pens in the above photo — not a one of them functional. And why, when their cartridges appear to be full? Well, now I know.

Thank you, Jenny. I feel enlightened.

Well. I promised I wouldn’t bore you with all the different categories. But how else am I going to explain this photo?

I am a pen magnet.

I don’t mean to brag, but that is an indisputable fact. Pens gravitate toward me wherever I go. They just can’t seem to keep away from me. Apparently they find me really attractive.

The minute they see me, they’re sure I’m going to do all kinds of cool things with them. Like write. Play around with them. Take them places. Show them off to my friends.  All of which I … of course…. do.

So who can blame them? But… how do they know that I’m like that, before they even meet me? Honestly, all I do is waltz into a place — any place — and they wend their way right over; try to get me to pick them up — which I inevitably do. I can’t help it. They practically throw themselves at me. I swear I’m not doing anything to bring this on.

Just to give you an idea of how bad it is, the other day I bought some carrots and when I got home I discovered that one of them was in the shape of a pen. See? They’ll even disguise themselves as vegetables just to work their way into my pockets.

I’m at my wits end with this. I have so many that I end up ignoring most of them. My home is turning into the Heartbreak Hotel of pens. I love that they love me, but I can’t possibly love them all back! It would take up every hour of my time just to give a few minutes of attention to each one!

You’ll be hearing more about my pen problem, because I’ve got a big one! My pens take up more room than a farm animal.

Good God, what have I done? Sometimes I wonder if I have more pens than brain cells.

That would explain why I’m sometimes accused of thinking with my pen.

It’s true. But not for the socks you already have.  (Sorry to get you all excited.) You have to buy your socks from the company that insures them. But keep it in mind for future socks.

I so hate losing socks — it gnaws at me. like a mouse on a corncob. How does this happen? I’m so careful. This is so not right!

I found a whole blog post  on all your options for preventing it. (Insurance information included, see item 7.) Jeri Dansky’s blog is very clean and simple to look at — unlike a lot of decluttering blogs, it isn’t cluttery looking! She’s a professional problem solver in the area of clutter, while I’m just another schmoe trying to crawl out from underneath all this stuff.

I might try some of her techniques for not losing them, but even though my blog is all about getting rid of stuff, I draw the line at single socks. I disagree on her sixth point:  “don’t keep those single socks around forever.”

I’m saving every single one of them.

That other sock’s got to be somewhere, and I can even narrow it down to this building. How hard can it be? It can’t have dematerialized. I refuse to accept that it’s really lost. I’ve had them turn up as much as two years later.

Imagine how you’d feel if you tossed out a lone sock and its partner turned up the next day. That would be like Romeo returning to Juliet only to find she’d committed suicide — only in this case, you’d be responsible.

And yes I know there are bigger things to worry about than sock loss, but my problems count too.