I Married an Opera Singer! (Part .5)

And he married one, too! And it's awesome. And our dining room table looks like this:

I take deep breaths. I think calm, happy thoughts. "Chaos is a part of life; tackle one problem at a time; pants totally go on tables. They certainly go on the same tables as scores, deodorant, bits of ribbon, and a spoon." It sort of works. I am not a neat freak by any means (as any of my old roommates will tell you!) but married life has brought my tendency towards organizational sprawl to a new level. And yet...there is a method to this apparent madness.

Quadrant 1: Upper left-hand-corner
Music. Sheet music, scores, anthologies. Accordion folder of loose music organized by language; each language subdivided into songs, arias, and duets. I include this detail to prove to you (and myself) that I am not a total heathen.

Quadrant 2: Upper right-hand-corner
Hubbyland. Pants + coffee + music + tie = the man I love!

Quadrant 3: Lower right-hand-corner
Wifeyland. Scanner + dictionaries + music + random bit of ribbon = moi!

Quadrant 4: Lower left-hand-corner
Euuuhhhh....Stuffland? I am going to take heart from the fact that both the hand sanitizer and the deodorant are in this quadrant, but lose a little of my confidence when trying to incorporate the spoon, seltzer can, and Wesley Balk book.

But for reals. I am not trying to justify this mess. Our table no longer looks this way and my brain is much, much, much happier. I am more relaxed, and I work better, when I feel good about myself as a functioning, organized person. In combining two creative lives, however, there needs to be room - a huge, huge amount of room - for chaos. I don't think it should be constant (I would lose my brains) and I am not one of those people who says creative = messy and neat = not creative, but I am someone who needs to actively choose to work when an easier way to feel accomplished would be to organize something. I'm looking for balance. Maybe I'll find it! Until then, as Tom Chapin says: "IIIII'm livin' in a...neat mess!"

Happy brains!