6 clipboards

There are things we dont control in life.  For me the list is somewhat longer and more robust than most people.  For example about 3/4 of the time my hair gets trimmed is in response to an intimate of mine saying “You look awful, i am going to cut your hair” and then taking direct action.

Angie has returned from Europe and is stopping at the commune on her way to Texas.  She has been camped out in my room for the last week.  My room is an entropy trap.  It contains an unusually large number of guests (as much without me as with me in it) and often some of their stuff lingers after their departure.  On top of this i am not what most people would call a tidy and well organized person.  Nominally inspired by the heater being blocked by the dresser, Angie decided to declutter my room.  As with most of my hair cuts, this happened to me, rather than it being some carefully considered option on my part.


Angie and Willow in Barcelona circa 2009

What started as an effort to liberate the blocked heating duct became a full frontal assault on the chaos demons who were long term tenants in my room.  Angie’s considerable organizing skills were deployed in task of decoding which of the thousands of papers were actually important and what was recycling, which box of perhaps precious object are treasure and which are trash.

When she found the first two clipboards with papers on them describing incomplete projects, she thought maintaining them as is was the appropriate response, but when the total climbed to 6 in this tiny room she realized that this was yet another failed organizing effort on my part and moved the papers the “perhaps important” pile and liberated the clipboards.

i barely recognized the room when i returned late last night.  Beyond cleaning and reconfiguring the furniture, Angie had displayed a bunch of pretty things which had been lost or hidden, switched out the terrible lights and found a better place for Willow’s fold out mattress.

She is one of my key handlers.  One way she demonstrates her affection is by improving my life, often without my request to do so.  Early in our relationship there were many more points of contact. Angie co-managed Outside Work with me and the communities speakers program called TOAST.  We did the Honest Seduction workshop tour in Europe together and a bunch of fingerbook propaganda projects.  I still miss her executive talents in these and other areas.  And for this lucky week, while we share my cramped room i am actively reminded of the many ways she has touched and enhanced my life.