Dear Wing Chun,

I bet you’re going to get a ton of email expressing this same woe — I feel like I’m getting buried in clutter!We’re so busy that we’re almost never home, and when we are we just don’t often have any enthusiasm to tackle it.

The biggest culprit in the kitchen is mail, but other forms of it seem to build up elsewhere.Even welcome, useful stuff we actually want just seems to get underfoot.My pictures go unhung because I am loathe to put holes in our virgin walls.My new hubby and I have wedding presents we haven’t put anywhere yet but in a pile on a table in the basement, and we’ve been married since August.I have perfectly nice things I received for Christmas last year that are still piled in a box in the spare closet, and I’m looking at this Christmas with a twinge of dread that I’ll have still more stuff to deal with in three weeks.

I suspect that your advice might echo Sars’s common refrain of “just start somewhere and do it” when she’s asked about how to tackle inertia or dauntingly large projects, but some basic tips or starting points would be handy.It’s not like we’re lazy people; I’ve been known to take on huge projects in my spare time.It’s the minutiae of daily life that defeat me.If we don’t start to get a handle on it now, I shudder to think what it could get like when we have kids.

Thanks,
Feeling like Pigpen

Dear Pigpen,

Oh, please don’t have kids until you have the clutter taken care of! You’ll have them taken away by Child Protective Services for making them live in a messy house, like on this one episode of Oprah I saw over ten years ago that still haunts my dreams.

But seriously. As usual, Sars is wise. If it’s a clutter problem that’s pretty much taken over the house, you really do have to “just start somewhere and do it.” Start with the room that needs the least work, so that contemplating doing it doesn’t give you an ulcer. Say, the bathroom. There’s probably not that much clutter there, right? Take a Saturday, empty out the cupboards, throw away everything that’s no good anymore, and box up the stuff that’s still good but that isn’t going to be used (and we’ve all got Body Shop baskets collecting dust on their intact cellophane in forgotten corners of our houses — all of us) to donate to a homeless or battered women’s shelter. Unless you have a really vast bathroom, it shouldn’t take you more than one weekend afternoon, and the sense of accomplishment you will feel when you’ve finished should spur you on to tackle bigger jobs.

I also have a piece of advice that you may not like: if you have stuff in boxes that you haven’t touched since last Christmas, that is stuff you do not need. Seriously. That’s twelve straight months without your using it, and if you haven’t used it in that time, you’re never going to. Trust me: never. I don’t care if it was something you registered for and thought you really wanted at the time. Get rid of it. Don’t feel guilty for acquiring things and then ditching them; or, feel a little guilty, and remember that feeling when you’re about to tell your parents you really want a potter’s wheel for your birthday, and remember that guilty feeling you get when you have to get rid of stuff you’ve acquired but totally don’t need. Don’t just keep things out of obligation; if they’re not useful to you, they will be to someone else. There are plenty of charitable causes that would be happy to accept your unused housewares or whatever, or you can sell them on eBay. You’re either going to get rid of them now, or you’re going to get rid of them at a garage sale whenever you move. Do it now.

Finally: unless you’re planning to entertain at home between now and the new year, don’t actually do it now. Don’t bother trying to tackle any of this before then. You’re already, I’m sure, dealing with a baseline stress level that’s pretty high, just because of all the usual holiday crap, so adding this on top of it isn’t advisable right now, because here’s what would happen: you’d mentally schedule the bathroom overhaul for December 21, and then something would come up at the last minute, and you’d be so demoralized by having failed that you’d give up on the bigger job, and then another year would go by and you’d be where you are now…plus another year’s worth of clutter on top of it. Having said that, give yourself a reasonable deadline to have finished going through and organizing each room of the house — say, aim to have the whole house done by the end of February, and come up with some kind of reward for you and your husband, like a weekend away or a new TV, to motivate you to do it by the deadline.

Dear Sars,

Your interesting article on English usage was just what I’ve been looking for since I became aware of how prevalent grammatical errors are these days among some highly educated people.On a web site for physicians, I frequently see “there” for “their” or for “they’re,” “are” for “our,” “to” for “too,” et cetera, as you discussed.This irritates me largely because poor grammar can be hard to read and clearly understand.

The material in your article suggests to me that you may know about usage of a phrase that seems to me to be universally constructed improperly.It has to do with where one places the word “only.”It seems to me that “I’m only going to bake a cake” means “I’m not going to do anything else,” but “I’m going to bake only a cake” means “that is all I’m going to bake (although I might broil or boil something else).”I believe the first phrase is intended to have the second meaning.Any comments?

Hypercurious

Dear Hyper,

Well…I can’t possibly say what meaning is “intended” to have without knowing the context.I don’t understand your question — do you mean that people say the first thing when they mean the second?Or that they say the second and mean the first?

The placement of “only” isn’t irrelevant, but in context, most of us could distinguish the difference between the two phrases, I think.

Hey Sars,

So, I have a bit of an issue I think you may be able to shed a bit of light
on here.

Basically, the long and short of it is this: my ex-boyfriend is getting
married in a week and I am freaking out about it.

The thing is, we broke up over three years ago, and while he has met the
woman of his dreams, I have yet to date at all. Okay, not quite, but let’s just
say I can count the number of dates on one hand and they were all first
dates. The real problem is that this hasn’t bothered me at all until about
two weeks ago.

I’m happy being single and I would rather be on my own than
settle for someone I’m not really into. Sure, I have spent the random
Saturday night explaining to Ben and Jerry why no one will ever love me, but
those are very rare evenings indeed and overall I am quite happy. Lately,
though, I just wallow around in the whole “Poor me, I’m so pathetic and
unattractive and I need a boyfriend or else I’m a pathetic loser blah blah
desperate-cakes.”I sort of feel like I lost some kind of competition or
something. Stupid, yes, I know. What I don’t understand is, why is this
freaking me out so much and how do I get the hell over it?

As I know how hard it is to solve problems without all of the variables, the
details of the situation are as follows:

A. He was my first boyfriend, first love, first boy I ever slept with/did
almost everything with, et cetera.
B. I DO NOT want him back. He is a great guy, but it was never meant to be.
C.He dumped me. It was messy, but hey, it was over three years ago. I have
dealt and moved on and we are now friends.
D. I am very happy for him and his fiancée. While I’m not able to attend the
wedding, I did send them a present, and in my heart of hearts I want them to
be happy. That’s the biggest reason why this is screwing me up so much. If I
didn’t get along with him, or talk to him, I could just blow it if and say,
“fuck ‘im” and all that. I can’t, though, because we are friends and I feel
that much crappier for being so damn jealous of his happiness.

Anyway, what do you think? Any suggestions of how to pull myself out of
this? I HATE that I feel this way. I’ve always been a very independent
person and I’m not used to being so stupid about something that is going to
work itself out eventually.

Thanks,
Formerly Happy Hermit

Dear Hap,

It’s totally natural.It makes you feel like a petty, horrible little person, but it’s totally natural.He’s moved on; he’s made a big commitment to another woman, one he didn’t want to make to you.It stings.

It’s not about wanting to get back together with him, or wanting a boyfriend yourself, really; it’s about the message the culture often sends to us, and especially to women, that you don’t measure up if you don’t have a partner.You feel like you should have at least another relationship under your belt so that you “compare,” and again, it’s natural.

Let yourself have a snit about it, in private, and know that it’ll pass, because it will.It’s not generally fun to have hard evidence that exes have moved on, even if you’re fine with it in theory, but don’t beat yourself up for freaking out; a lot of people do, whether they admit it or not.

Hi there Sars,

I switched high schools last year, and at the new school I met “Betsy.”She
was in my math class and we began talking all the time, and I really started
to like her.I knew she was gay from the beginning and she knew I wasn’t,
and we just left it at that.

However, about five months into our
friendship, she told me she had a crush on me.I was kind of blown away,
but acted like I wasn’t.It weirded me out, and I couldn’t talk to her like
I used to.We pretty much avoided each other.But summer came around, and
it was WAY easier talking to her online.We began speaking on a daily basis
this way, and she told me she loved me and gave me all these poems and said
all these romantic things to me in French.I gradually accepted the fact
she liked me “that way” and things became comfortable once again.

But.Here’s the deal.Lately, she calls me every night.I like talking to
her, so it’s not really a big deal, but some people have told me this is
leading her on.I don’t know if it necessarily is, ’cause I’ve told her
repeatedly that I’m not gay and we could never be together.I think she
still has a crush on me, because she gives me these LOOKS that are just not
platonic.We also pass notes to each other every day in class, and we’re
just talking all the damned time. And…I flirt with her.Yeah, I know.
But I totally do.

I’m just flattered and a bit curious, I guess, but is that
REALLY leading her on?I don’t know.But is talking to her all the time a
bad thing? I’d really like to hear your input.

Love always,
The Flirt

Dear Flirt,

On the one hand, if Betsy knows that you don’t have those feelings for her, or for any woman, it’s her responsibility if she keeps putting herself in the position to get disappointed.But on the other hand, if you know she does have those feelings, and you encourage her when you know there’s no hope of it going anywhere…well, it’s a bit callous.

First and foremost, stop flirting with her, and stop accepting any tokens or gestures that cross the line into the romantic.If she says she loves you, tell her not to do it again; if she sends you a poem in an email, tell her it’s inappropriate.Whether she realizes it or not, she takes hope from it when you permit her to crush on you so overtly, and it’s nice when another person adores you that way, but…it is in fact inappropriate, because that hope is false.

I think you need to sit her down and remind her that you like her, as a friend, but that’s it — and that she needs to call you a little less frequently and pass fewer notes.Start sitting next to other people and spending time on the phone with other people.

I know you like her as a friend; I know it’s nobody’s fault that you don’t like girls that way.But the current set-up isn’t healthy, really, and you have to put things more firmly on platonic ground.

Dear Sars,

I’m a first-year college student who went a very tiny charter school, junior high/high school. While it was a performing and fine arts school, I never learned the knack of giving a presentation without getting terribly sick, and having to rush out before and after the job was done to be ill.

I have a presentation coming up in a few days and I’m already getting cotton mouth. I know all about my subject, and my class is on the smallish side for a JC but it seems huge to me (on average my classes in HS were no bigger then 12-20 people).
My teacher is very nice as are the others in my class, but again in JH/HS my teacher would allow me to have a friend come up with me, or give whatever it was I had to behind a platform (as long as it fit in the presentation, and believe me I made it).

So what do I do now — I feel too chicken to tell my teacher, “Hey, I’m a big baby and I can’t make my feet take to the front of the room, can I not do this?” because I know I will have to do this over and over again in the future. So, any ideas?

Weak in the Knees

Dear Weak,

I would actually take your teacher aside and tell him that you have severe anxiety issues; ask him or her if maybe you can’t use one of the crutches you used in secondary school, just to get you through it this one time until you deal with it more intensively.

Regardless of how he/she responds, you should deal with it more intensively.It’s social anxiety, and it’s completely treatable — both short- and long-term meds exist for it, and you can also seek behavioral therapy that will make it easier for you to manage the physical side effects of the phobia and do what you need to do.

Grab a campus directory or the yellow pages and call around to find a counselor who specializes in managing social anxiety; talk to your prof.You can beat this thing, but to do that, you’ll have to ask for some help.

[12/19/03]

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