Voters Decided

When I participate in a Zoom session with folks from other parts of America, as they express irritation with their representatives, I almost gloat that my state remains pretty mainstream.  We do not elect racists, idlers seeking entitlements, or people who think green everything should get mandated by law.  I've not even encountered public hostility ot Jews or our attachment to Israel as a place of Jewish sovereignty, something that has no bearing in our local elections beyond the positions of those we send to Congress.  My state has a single dominant statewide party, the Democrats, with legislative majorities, though not quite supermajorities.  For the most part, our officials function as technocrats, people who understand economic growth, the importance of favorable bond ratings, and an element of sensitivity to those segments of the public that have not fared well. Divisive issues are settled by primaries, not general elections.  This biennial expression of citizens' preference took place this week.  Nationally, I sense a desire to hit the reset button, throw the rascals out.  And to some extent the registered Democrats did that.  

Statewide we returned incumbents and replaced a vacancy for State Treasurer with a professional finance expert.   For the legislature, many office holders got their termination notices, including my State Senator.  I've known him for some time.  A competent, decent fellow.  An administrative career professional rising to a position of prominence with my state's largest employer.  I voted for him.  He lost his primary, as he had been ousted from the State Assembly in a primary a few years before.  I got to know the Assemblyman who beat him, another very worthy fellow who seems more empathetic than my more businesslike friend.  

This round of primaries saw an upstart sub-party.  The Working Families Party seemed loosely organized, adequately funded, and probably made themselves more visible than some of the incumbents.  They turned over eight seats, cominng within a few votes on another.  They will have a presence in the legislature, though I am not sure what type of legislation they will either create or insert provisions into.  They do not seem woke, as in gimme what you deprived me of through history, but they set a divide between those who have prospered and those who have not.  Since only 22% of registered Democrats voted, they likely targeted neighborhoods where they would generate motivation.  Their candidate came to my front door early in the campaign season, as did my friend who lost.  I was not home for either, but they left their advertising.  

And elsewhere, Democrat voters expressed a desire for change, or at least avoidance of impropriety.  My wife's hairdresser's husband had held an elected county office for decades.  He got voted out, probably more related to unfavorable publicity that he could have avoided than any dissatisfaction with his performance in office.

And another familiar face enters.  One of my students from my synagogue teen classes finally won a seat somewhere.  He made it to County Council by about 30 votes.  He promotes himself as an environmentalist.  He seems a bit of a luftmensch, that type of fellow who sort of has a job but not one with responsibilities and advancement.  He does have engineering degrees from well-known places but I suspect his classmates have advanced in their careers more than he has.  And I've not seen him or his twin or his mother at shul in recent years.  But he got enough voters to go his way.  And his engineering degrees will likely pay off, as our county legislative business seems dominated by various forms of land use and construction.  We seem less focused on his issues of Green Space, though I can understand why his campagn to protect our county from endless suburban sprawl would have its appeal.

Might I have a unifying assessment?  Like much of America, my locale has its share of people dissatisfied with their circumstances.  They cannot accurately blame their legislature as much as scapegoat them, which they did.  I saw people who could be moved to acting by somebody knocking at their door or engaging them in some sympathetic way.  The removal from office of my wife's friend suggests that people have become more intolerant of impropriety, or even those who enable impropriety while remaining personally reputable.  Our statewide office holders have represented us adequately, getting returned by big margins.  And those sideshows of woke and blaming Jews did not get tested in my district as they have elsewhere.

I'm currently enrolled in a course on The Federalist Papers at the state university's senior division.  In explaining the proposed Constitution to the skeptics of New York State, our national founders highlighted how they needed to restrain factions.  They did this in part by imposing term limits of various types.  I saw the plus and minus side to their reasoning this week.  We definitely had a faction, this time Working Families.  We also had incumbents who could only continue representing us by getting majority votes.  Statewide we avoided factions, as the founders predicted the outcome of a big electorate.  Locally where the number of voters were few, promotion of niche interests prevailed.  These candidates could go on the attack, while incumbents had to defend.  Indeed, my friend ousted in the primaries, campaigned on what he did in office, not what he would seek if returned.  The foters understood the difference.  They opted for people who would look for a future, not having a past to defend.  For many wage earners, the past did not fare well.  They opted for something else.  The new people will have to define more clearly what that something else is.  They will also have to engage in coalitions to bring their agendas to the voters next time.

Excessive Programming

What is the right number and frequency of events?  Those arias of congregational performance that gather community, though sometimes at the expense of the normal rhythms of Jewish existence, or at least my concept of how living Jewishly expresses itself.  These events attract people, for sure.  Create kehillah, maybe, or a sense of obligation to be seen, as the Protestant sanctuaries depended upon for much of the 20th century.  Attract consumers, yes.  Create engagement, more open to challenge.

These shabbat dinners now pop up monthly.  Selichot this season morphed from worship, reflection, and transition to a spectacle.  There's something not quite right about breaking into a line hora as the congregation recites the Yom Kippur confessional for the first time.  The clergy are not roobs.  Most of the folks stepping and clapping could probably appreciate that too.  I remember selichot from college as the ultimate expression of kehillah.  We reacquainted for the first time since departing the campus the previous May.

Judaism has its times of communal gatherings.  Shabbos, the synagogue sukkah, mass attendance for RH and YK.  There are opportunities, even obligations, to publicly honor people.  We have forums for those fulfilling special projects to present their achievements.  Learning sometimes does better communally, though "teach me something" with no personal effort emerges as a trap.

We also have those private times.  Judaism has its organizations, but it also has its more subdued moments.  Shabbos dinner, mostly with my household, which expanded and contracted over the cycles of life.  A few friends join us at our table a few times each year.  Small gatherings to observe shiva.  Those moments I allocate for myself each Thursday to explore what four whose learning exceeds mine have to say about the upcoming Torah and Haftarah portions.  Solitary time, though not lonely time, reading selected reports in The Forward and elsewhere about Jewish life, history, culture, and more, then sending a note of my perspective to the authors.  That's engagement.

There's a place for joining in, though it can and does create consumers who opt in and out.  Engagement is not that.  It comes in the form of contributing, conducting a class, learning a Torah aliyah or Haftarah that you've not mastered before, cooking the Shabbos dinner, getting asked onto a committee because you have proficiency with what that committee does.  Those people shift from consumer to contributor.

And then we have the creators, the people who design the programs.  I see too much restriction with Dominant Influencers, gatekeeping entitlements, a role that even the most talented cannot easily penetrate.  Those creators design the menu for consumers.  

So how many shabbos dinners do I want to attend, especially when the food from my kitchen surpasses the contents of the foil chafing dishes?  How much entertainment do I want?  How many classes when nobody asked me what education might enhance my Jewish experience?  As we get into the Holy Days, programmed by a Steering Committee of what the Protestants would call their congregational elders, judging a very iffy Selichot that prioritized popularity over propriety, I could see some divergence between my private Judaism over programming.  And I control that private Judaism.

Summer's Transition

Labor Day arrives at the last allowable date this year.  The transition to fall begins a little earlier in recent years.  Schools have mostly returned to session, colleges and public schools, before August concludes.  College football now has a Week 0.  Only a few games make it to my ESPN stream, but they include some teams that will get a significant viewership as the season moves ahead.  

My OLLI program, which coordinates with the state university calendar, still begins after Labor Day, by one day.  My course preferences all came through.  My medical care eased off a bit for the summer, not because it was summer, but some medial meniscus pain got me plugged into a physical therapy program, which should continue in earnest through the fall.  My other medical appointments cluster from September to November.  

Synagogue programming perks up with the Holy Days.  I cannot describe myself as emotionally captured by their arrival.  I approach them with a mixture of obligation, a small measure of renewal, and maybe some personal accomplishment as I build a sukkah to share with guests.  My congregation has doubled down on programming, some of it spectacles that don't generate a lot of anticipation for me in my later years.  I much prefer the rhythms of the calendar, those recitatives of shabbos each week with dinner for two at my dining room table over a communal event for thirty.  But in deference to others who feel differently, these events have significant attendance.  

Even OLLI has a different look for me this fall.  Only three lecture courses, one online.  The others require my participation:  non-fiction writing, a next try at violin lessons, a first try at the acoustic guitar, a course on acting.  Less sitting in a classroom, watching slides or DVDs.  Maybe a little reading to do for one course, but passive sitting for the lectures.  Engagement for the majority of selections that require me to perform in some way.  

Travel comes more easily in the summer.  No big excursions, no airplanes this year.  It is not impossible for the fall, though a strain.  Maybe a day trip, maybe a long weekend.  I'm not hot for adventure, though seeing the grandchildren, now each past their first birthday, adds some joy, enough to offset the car or plane time.  Day trips:  Haven't been to shabbos morning at Beth Tfiloh for a few years.  Probably some places in Amish country.  Maybe public transportation to NYC.  And take better advantage of my SEPTA Senior Pass.  Limited mainly by Physical Therapy schedules.  And every fall needs me to watch a West Chester U game live.

So while the closing months of the calendar year offer activities, I need to choose what I do selectively.  Amid OLLI, Jewishness, health needs, all emerging these months, I cannot neglect that precious ME TIME, sitting in my space, interacting with authors, experessing myself in different forums, and tending to some gradual decluttering of the house and acquiring more mastery in my kitchen.

Scheduling gives structure that better enables activities without assigned times.

Sleep Segments

Sleep patterns have a way of shifting in my later years.  Publicly available YouTubes delve into some of this.  Sleep trackers of dubious accuracy exist as phone apps next to a pillow and as watch features.  I've used both.  Sleep hygiene advice exists online from multiple sources, most pretty consistent.  Go to bed at a fixed time, arise at a fixed time, don't fidget indefinitely in bed when awake.  Getting up and reading results in sleep deprivation the next day.  And avoid the bed during the non-sleep times.

Some predictability emerges.  For me, it's lights out at 10PM, unless my wife is reading.  Shades down.  Bedroom and bathroom doors nearly closed.  Room cool with window AC if needed.  Its noise does not seem a deterrent to sleep.  Phone and laptop off at 9:30.  In bed with basic Casio watch, set to notify me at 6:50, which I mostly do not notice, and with wife's clock radio set to a classical station at 6:48AM.  So far, so good.  I'm rarely agitated in the evening as a source of initial insomnia.  I've learned to mark the end of each day: three things that went well, one that did not, and three sources of gratitude.  Then lights out and into oblivion within minutes, with a short recognition of my wife's arrival an hour or two later most nights.  

Middle-of-night insomnia has gotten predictable, typically at 3AM.  One reason I prefer Casio with no apps to my Tozo 3 with sleep tracker and countdown timers and heart rate record is its inclination not to look at it when I conclude my first sleep phase.  Sometimes I can see the electrical numbers on the alarm clock, sometimes not.  A quick illumination of the Casio reveals the time.  Not invariable consistency but most often within an hour of 3AM.  

YouTubers claiming expertise offer explanations, few provable, and solutions, none effective for me.  My guess is that my primitive brain takes over.  Sleeping through the night seems a recent addition to human behavior.  In hunter-gatherer or early community eras, the night presented as two sleep times.  Nature determined darkness, with a hormonal mechanism to adapt.  Dawn determined awakening.  And about mid-way between, people got up to spot-check danger.  Later in the early communal phase, people took turns as sentries, covering overnight shifts.  We employ people in that fashion today in our police and medical teams, but we move their assigned shifts, keeping them the same length.  So there is a physiological explanation, along with some hormonal and medical ones.  A few tries at melatonin otc did not change that.  Dr samples of Ambien did, though I have no interest in medical manipulation of sleep with a stable pattern established that does not leave me impaired when my OOB time appears.

That second half of most nights appears in a minor transition.  Returning to sleep has also established predictability.  It takes just over an hour most of the time.  I rarely feel edgy or an inclination to make myself productive, in effect creating a second nocturnal work time.  Some nights I think about activities of the previous days or decision dilemmas.  I recognize some impasses as solved from having slept on it the first half of the night, but I do not keep a pen and paper next to the bed to record what I think.  On rare occasions, a dream awakens me, more often a nightmare with distortion of the familiar than a sleep hour of REM ecstasy.

The interval of night's second half seems recently different.  My ability to doze off again has gotten less predictable.  When I do, the second half rarely brings me to my assigned wake time.  I can expect a second awakening about an hour or so before the scheduled clock radio brings my ear some measures of a symphony and my Casio chimes a minute or two later.  At the second awakening I rarely feel ready to arise earlier than the alarm.  Most often I lie quietly, glance at the clock or watch periodically, then arise when I intended to.  That part goes well.  What does not are those nights when I only stay awake for minutes on the second arousal, drift back to a deeper stage of sleep in that final hour, then get an unexpected jolt from the radio's timer.  I rarely feel motivated to emerge from bed under those circumstances, though I will mostly keep my commitment to myself, and to sleep hygiene advice to get up and proceed with dental hygiene, irrespective of how I feel.  I almost always adapt once I see daylight through the bathroom window and complete the session with my electric toothbrush.  Then downstairs, go outside to retrieve the newspaper from the end of the driveway, and let natural light reset my intrinsic patterns.

Might I feel better, or at least have a longer duration of energy through the day, if those overnight interruptions disappeared?  I don't know, though in late life I do not feel energy deprived.  I am able to recognize the pattern on my own, without the aid of an electronic device.  Polysomnography might determine cause, though I suspect my sleep pattern will differ in a semi-public space hooked up to wires and sensors than it does in my own bedroom or a hotel.  Not worth the effort, though I sometimes wonder how much more energy can come my way with small tweaks in the things I habitually do.  

For now, my pattern, while not optimal to the YouTube gurus or the sleep advocacy organizations, gets me by.  No reason to change my current circumstances.

Made the Trip

 

Shop-Rite has largely abandoned its previous Kosher commitments, mostly for understandable reasons.  Skeletal fresh poultry, almost no beef.  Trader Joe's has added steaks, ground beef, and sometimes cubes.  This mostly suffices a couple of empty nesters.  But I really got spoiled on my visit to Baltimore.  Seven Mile Market is apparently the largest dedicated Kosher market in the USA.  I could find anything on my visit.  Its distance makes it impractical for the few things I'd get.  Much closer sits a project similar to our Shop-Rite agreement, of blessed memory.  It serves a much larger Orthodox and Conservative group of kosher consumers.  The GPS set the trip at 45 minutes to cover the thirty miles, including a bridge crossing.  

The challenge to my driving skills aside, I found the scale of the surroundings intimidating.  This supermarket probably has twice the square footage of my local Shop-Rite.  It sits at the edge of a shopping complex with its two entrances separated by 0.4 miles.  The parking area and the store just seemed vast.  People take their carts from dedicated sections where the previous shoppers left them.  Apparently they economize on gofers to harvest the carts back to the store's entrance.  Not seeing any at the entrance, I went back to the parking lot to retrieve mine.

Knowing that the store was immense, I started at Customer Service to inquire which sections contain the kosher products.  Unlike my local store which had cases of meat with other meet, a bakery, and a deli case with other deli, this Shop-Rite consolidated their kosher offerings as effectively a mini-store within a store, though keeping the baked goods with other baked goods, but labelled as kosher-pareve.  I walked in, where I greeted the attendant.  As I conveyed my story of my local arrangement shutting down, he responded that he also lived in my town for two years during the early days of the agreement.

I came for beef and found quite a lot.  Big slab of raw pastrami.  An eye roast, beef cubes.  I even found a veal chop at a price acceptable to me, something I've not had for years.  They had prepared stuff.  I got a chicken pot pie.  And a salami and a tube of kishke.  A few other things not available to me at home.  The kosher nook even had a tzedakah box, a tradition at kosher shops.  I added a dollar.  As tempting as the meat cases looked, I did my best to limit purchases to what could fit in my freezer.  All fit into the single insulated bag that I brought with me.  $149.  As I added to my cart, I also considered when I might use each item.  Beef cubes, Rosh Hashanah which spans Shabbos and Sunday.  No guests coming, have to be able to get to services.  Crock pot of cholent or stew will satisfy that.  The eye roast:  guests in the sukkah.  I bought a slab of beef:  subdivide for three shabbos dinners.  The pastrami:  guests, as we have no upcoming birthdays.  Tub of  chopped liver, that's mine.  Turkey slices, weeknight dinner probably.  

Waze took me through places I'd probably not choose to drive on my own.  Interestingly, when I first came to the Philadelphia area as a student, then borrowed my parents' car to visit my girlfriend the last two years, many of the highways I use now had not yet been developed.  The NJ Turnpike exited me near Cherry Hill, followed by a drive past strip malls and auto malls, into some parts of Camden where you try not to stop, then across the Ben Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia.  I've not driven across the Ben Franklin in decades, and can't remember the last time I took a bus from Philly to NYC that crossed it.  Yet the highways on the NJ side had a familiar look.  The shopping places had greatly expanded with chains that did not exist 50 years ago.  And the life of the roads also showed deterioration with partial repairs.  I remember transitions from one numbered route to another that required drivers to express some chutzpah to claim the lane they needed.  On the route from home to Shop-Rite, it spared me the dangers of Camden itself, but skirted it more closely on the way back.  Waze's algorithm returned me home by a route better maintained, roads more suitable for modern highway driving.

I am hoping that my purchases will last from about the Holy Days through Thanksgiving.  Shop-Rite and Trader Joe's offer enough for ordinary uses.  Now that I have a few hard to obtain treats, though, I have to invite more guests.

Substandard Encounters

Elul has arrived.  This sixth month of the Hebrew calendar serves as an intro to the Holy Days that approach the following month.  Our synagogues have their usual cloth adornments changed to white ones.  We are reminded to reflect on our missteps, things we did that caused harm to others or to the community or to ourselves.  An abundance of these.  We also have people victimized or treated in a less than dignified way, not just by individuals but by our Jewish institutions working within their customary formats.  Often justified in the name of Achdoos, or public solidarity.  Nobody caused these things, but often nobody takes responsibility or ownership of them.

I have my own gripes, accumulated over a lifetime, too often under a Jewish banner.  Some worth pursuing, as my untoward experience often reflects customary practices that need to be reconsidered.  Our synagogues and federations make great whipping boys.  They populate with officers, the best and brightest, chosen for some mixture of obedience and deficit of contrition.  People who think that if you resent your experience, there must be something inferior about you.  Probably no better way to account for the institutional attrition, aging without optimal generational replacement, that plagues so many places less robust or secure than a generation ago.  Malice rare.  Insensitivity without accountability too common.

My own recent encounters probably illustrate the underpinnings as well as anything else.  At synagogue, I only serve on one committee.  Nobody invited me to it, but the chairmen tend to function with sign-up sheets.  This one they accepted me.  I'm not at the core of the mission, but I can be very useful.  My ability to explore other organizations' experiences with similar projects and tap into experts has its place.  And I've been invited to each meeting, attend nearly all, and contribute.  No invitations to be part of the any committee activities between meetings.  I could not attend a recent meeting due to travel.  Before the meeting, I sent the chair a note to include me in the next project.  I returned from vacation to find a follow-up note.  I had been excluded again from something I wanted to do.  Blackballed?  Not an unreasonable conclusion based on who did get some of the assignments that I expected.  I don't know.  Pursue it?  Probably I should, as it violates some dearly held principles.  

As kids, later as an employees, we each brought a few strengths.  Even if you brought no strengths, once on the team you were part of the team.  The weakest athlete in gym class or camp still got to play his one at-bat, stand in right field, do five minutes on half-court basketball, or get pinned faster than a Prom Queen on the wrestling mat.  A Bar Mitzvah kid, irrespective of achievement, got his morning in the limelight, with public appreciation for what he was able to accomplish.  It also broke down, into exclusionary USY Cliques.  There were also places where you had to earn entitlements.  Scouts had ranks and they had merit badges.  Boys needed neither to attend a camping weekend.  Once there, though, the marginal kid still received responsibilities for cooking, cleanup squad, a chance to hold the flag.  Being a member and being treated unconditionally were core values, with leaders committed to enforcing them.

Later in the workplace, once hired, once part of the group, people not only received responsibilities but trust.  I had the good fortune to work in a high-end profession.  Everyone took call on scheduled weekends, everyone got assigned to present a conference or two each year, everyone got assigned a committee or two.  

Much of my Jewish experience has been more conditional than that, places with gatekeepers, places that judged people as useful or not.  Inherently important is a very different mindset.  In my younger years, I used to chant High Holiday Torah reading for one of the days, which varied from one year to the next.  Only machers got aliyot, all men despite gender equality policies of that synagogue, all dressed in Brooks Brother's suits.  Same men for each occasion each year.  They hugged each other when they completed their blessings.  Despite my flawless, expert chanting, I could expect two handshakes each morning.  I was useful.  I remember that decades later, long since transitioned to a different synagogue that values different things.

I'm still a HH Torah reader, though always Yom Kippur.  Initially this occurred for practical reasons, as my wife and I attended elsewhere for Rosh Hashanah, where she could function more as a participant.  Now that we have returned for all the Holy Days, I expressed an interest in swapping my YK reading for one of the RH readings.  Too much trouble for the person doing the assignments.  Forgive me, but  a few years ago I gave part of my assigned reading to another newer member who had joined our Torah reading rotation for many a Shabbos.  He deserved an invitation.  My thinking of him, not the VP considering how to make our services more inclusive and honoring a decent man not yet honored.  He had to learn it de novo, but succeeded.  Often filling the same assignments by default bypasses people who deserve better.  Despite my wanting a new challenge, I was again rejected but defaulted to what we've done before. Purposeful disruption sometimes has advantages over established practices.  Insensitivity to my skill, my willingness to expand that skill, and a different perspective of being part of my congregation's RH experience.  Pursue it?  Maybe.  After all, the Rabbi has a responsibility for advancing the participants, even when his VPs slouch a bit.

As we get into the services of the Holy Days, an individual has the task of bestowing honors on as many men as he can invite.  Most require no advance skill.  The vast majority entail opening and closing the Ark where the Torah scrolls are housed at specified times in the liturgy.  Other men get asked to lift or tie a Torah scroll or open the ark when those scrolls are removed or replaced into it.  When our congregation had far more people, it was easier to standardize.  Most years I received notification of which page my Ark opening would occur.  Two men ascend to the front at the same time.  I knew who my partner was.  As families left my congregation, the remaining men would have more than one opportunity to perform these over the course of several services.  My invitations eventually shifted from Ark openings to more visible tasks.  And I opted out a few years back.  The honor, or more recognition, became less authentic.  This serves as the school or camp rule that everyone, or at least the men, all get their At Bat.  It is designated an Honor.  I'm not sure it is.  It was not earned.  It's more of an entitlement of that male phenotype and membership that comprises the team roster.

For a few years I've declined these invitations.  Not because I object to being recognized as a team member, but because I have a different sense of what it means to honor somebody.  An Ark Opening is more of a Certificate of Attendance.  During the Holy Days I like to be more of a contributor than consumer.  My wife and I donate to the fund for the two people bestowed with real annual High Holy Day Honors.  These go to two people or organizations that made activities of the synagogue happen, the creators or designers or sometimes yeomen.  I do some of the Torah reading, in part because I know how, and in part because those present need to sit in a place where the effort and expertise have value.  We honor others by recognizing their talents, their uniqueness, and their willingness to have everyone contribute and create.  It requires sensitivity, something not conveyed with optimal consistency in my Jewish world over an adult lifetime.  An Ark Opening hardly compensates for rejection, not only experienced but expected along the way.

We can show up.  Woody Allen quipped that 80% of life is showing up.  And that may be how many of the key people measure the success of effort.  Attendance at events.  But Judaism in its most alluring form also has a rhythm.  It's a chance to not have a sign-up sheet but to seek out what people at their best can do and invite them to contribute, design, and create.  I've found that too restricted, even sometimes stifled by key people. But the Honor comes from letting people perform, seeking them out, creating those dialogs where spirit prevails over groupthink. 

So Elul, with its preliminaries, will move one day at a time to Tishrei, the cluster of Festivals, the chance to engage.  A chance to take account, correct some of the insensitivities, to reconsider the talent in place, who you've sought out, who you've made more important than they were, and who you kept on the same list from last year.  

, 

Missing Stuff

One great frustration has always been losing stuff, or really misplacing it, or more frequently having my wife move my things to wherever it might fit at the moment to accommodate visitors or prepare for the cleaners.  Sometimes my fault too.  I bought a VLog kit with an Amazon honorarium, used it twice to make brief movies of my grandchildren and never saw it again.  While I own lots of shoes, a few are versatile to many situations, including gray suede chukka boots.  Very few places they could be, though not in the closet with the rest of my shoes.

Sometimes I stumble on a cache of moved stuff.  When purging my family room of clutter, I happened upon a cardboard box wedged under the edge of our oak coffee table.  I removed one item at a time.  Women's clothing.  Also a variety of my stuff.  Stationery supplies, swag taken off tables at expos, handyman stuff that I'm surprised I never had to go back to the hardware store to replace.  I found a pre-inked stamp given to me by my hospital, complete with name and degree, intended to clarify who provided a marginally legible signature.  I removed the protective plastic cover and pushed the rubber surface onto scrap paper.  Out of ink.  No surprise for an item probably not used for fifteen years.  But it's mine.

What struck me about that box was not so much its contents but how unsorted it was.  Having like things together.  There is a place where paper hole punchers go and a place where a tube of plaster filler goes.  Those homes are different.  My desk, among my most protected places, has stuff that I would use at a desk.  It does not have paintbrushes or torn wallets that I've not gotten around to discarding.  My closet has designated places for dress shirts, pullover shirts, sweaters, and long pants, the latter organized by jeans, casual pants, and dress pants.  While it does not eliminate decision fatigue the way only having khaki pants would, it saves me from a clothing hunt when I try to dress in a way appropriate to my activities.  When I need to wrap gifts, the supplies are only in two places.

I've taken to sorting rooms as recent Semi-Annual projects.  My son's bedroom last cycle, our family room this one.  These spaces are not mine.  I am not the principal user of either.  But orderliness for myself also helps the user, whether my son who has not occupied that room for 15 years or my wife who sits on the family room couch as her prime space.  Most of the stuff there is not mine to discard, but enough is to recapture what is mine.

I found the VLog Kit in a laundry basket.  Not found the suede shoes.  Handyman stuff will go to the basement.  Not sure about the best destination for Expo tchotchkes.  But none of this stuff will get assigned to a random box.