Stuff

Concert tickets. Stamps. iPod. Water bottle. Spamalot program. Insurance cards valid since November. An earring. My camera. Christmas cards. A sheaf of school papers, both from last week and last month. Tissues. Checkbooks. Entertainment Weekly and Gourmet magazines. A box of Raisinettes.

That’s the current catalog of this desk, or at least the top layer, though it could just as easily have described the surface of my dresser or, at times, the passenger seat of my car.

Am I lazy and undisciplined, a continuing shame to my mother even at this late date? Obviously. But! Apparently I am one of the smartest, most creative and well-balanced people you’d ever want to meet. “Saying Yes to Mess,” a research-based ode to the benefits of clutter, has been atop the most emailed articles list at NYTimes.com for a few days now, the world, or at least their readership, being full of smart, creative, well-balanced people eager to justify the piles of crap with which they surround themselves.

Mess, as several new books explain, is merely the sign of an active mind, proof that a person has a full life and a healthy understanding of the disorder inevitably generated just by living. As Einstein said, "If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" Take that, Container Store.

Now I do tend to keep the more public rooms reasonably neat, and I've been known to tidy up in the wee hours for the peace of mind it brings, but Flylady never kept me in line for long, and my private spaces will always be defined by piles that are culled and straightened but never eliminated.

"Really neat people," reports Penelope Green,"are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands."

Damn straight.