putting things in order

I have just finished clearing out old paperwork. There is nothing so depressing a old forms, notices, slips, receipts, letters, cards ... they create such a lot of MESS. Last year I had the bright idea of buying a hanging file-folder - as with most objects we buy to put what we already own in, it rapidly filled up and, by hiding what we already had, allowed us to accumulate more. Dastardly. It is those moments when - to paraphrase a childhood heroine - I am convinced of the depravity of inanimate objects. Our bank here insists on sending us a veritable novel each month - not just one, but one for each bloody account. Regardless of the fact that usually there is absolutely minimal movement from the accounts, each is detailed over a minimum of three pages. Over a year, that amounts to -- well, a whole bag of paper that has to be dragged to the office to go into the incinerator cause they've thoughtfully put my account number, sort code, and name on each piece. Then I remind myself that this is the same bank that sends out activated debit and credit cards - as our good friend discovered to her disadvantage. Honestly.

But the point is - it's all gone. Or at least displaced. Or deferred. Anyway, the box feels like a sanctified, organized space. Why on earth does clearing rubbish and achieving some small measure of order provide such psychological balm?

We're going for dinner at our good friends' place tonight - it occurs to me that I tend to refer to everyone I blog about as a 'good' friend. It's either a redundant phrase or a pleonasm. Anyone I think of as a friend is 'good' by definition. I mean, I can't really see my self describing someone a a 'so-so' friend. But then describing someone as an acquaintance sounds odd and 'colleague' sounds ridiculous outside of a professional context. But then, I don't consider the people I work with at the library 'colleagues' - likely, cause it's not my profession. And qualifying friends as 'work friends' just fragments my life too much. Then I have to start keeping columns and worrying about boundaries. I remember a friend back home saying jokingly, the first or second time I called to arrange to have a drink, that we were now 'phone buddies'. But were I to go out to the pub with the whole gang, there would be acquaintances and friends there - but I would relate the evening as a night out with friends, and include people I didn't know as well in that. I suppose because of shared space in both a physical and psychological/emotional space. I've just been reading about Judith Butler on kinship/family and remembering my own research into 18th century constructions of the term (via Naomi Tadmor and Ruth Perry and Jane Spencer) - and considering all that in terms of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which is to say, sorry for the digression....!

Dinner yes - to celebrate strange vegetables and our shared passion for cookbooks and food. I have a lovely collection of veg: squash, beetroot, rocket - and damn, just realised I'm out of cornmeal for the polenta I had invisaged. Back to shop.

Oh yes, and I have the OFFICIAL LETTER - I'm officially now Dr Kaley Kramer (PhD - Leeds). Damn ham. That sounds nice.