I am engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the messes N left behind. Sorting, tossing, organizing garage and computer room. Recycle and garbage bins full to overflowing.

In an odd kind of way, I like doing it. I enjoy the process of clearing away the jungle undergrowth of disorder and creating a peacful, organized environment.

It is my theory that one's outward surroundings reflect one's inner world. It has been my observation that people with disordered minds have chaotic living situations, and, in a less extreme mode, people with cluttered minds (could this be most of us at times?) have disorganized surroundings.

N's stuff reflects extreme disorder. There are computer manuals mixed in with medications, wound around with dirty socks and bill statements and receipts. I cannot begin to describe it. It's so overwhelming in his computer room that I have had to start at the corner of the wall by the light switch and deal with one item at a time. I used to be banned from entering the room. Wonder why....

When I told his sister-in-law that I was cleaning up his computer room, she just rolled her eyes. She's seen the mess.

My most recent "find" was a small bottle of kitty treats, unopened, next to the monitor wipes. Cats treated, left happy. For the next few minutes, anyway.

I have to be careful that the cleanup does not obviously show that I've tossed stuff out or given it away. If N ever comes back to visit, he will be seriously disturbed by the loss of his stuff and motivated to do something maladaptive. So when I clear off a surface, I put something else on it, for instance, hoping he won't notice.

I did give away a couple of old computer cases and keyboards. He will just have to deal with it. Also an 8-track video player (remember those?). He finds the sight of a flat, unoccupied surface seriously disturbing, so maybe I can find something in the garage to fill in the gap. Something in the "computer" category.

I am most annoyed by the vast array of "things" bought because he had to have them (lawyer brain so good at making an airtight case), used once or twice, then abandoned. Often, when he needed it again, years later, he'd go out and buy it again. I could open my own hardware or computer store.

Someday, maybe someday, I'll truly be able to clear this place out. Get rid of the 30-year-old law books, give away the books that will never be read again, sell the duplicate and triplicate sets of tools, etc. I have forbidden him ever to use power tools again, but I don't dare sell them. Yet.

And it's lovely rain again today. Whatever is the matter? She isn't sick and she hasn't a pain. Look, it's beginning again! Rain! (apologies to A.A.Milne)