Launder. (Socks.)

I did laundry yesterday. I have a major beef with paying for laundry, so I usually take mine to my brother's house, or just don't do it.

It's like that song by Jack's Mannequin that has the weird part, where he's speaking (from "I'm Ready")--which, by the way, you can hear only through one ear bud, interestingly:

I wake up to find it's another
four aspirin morning, and I dive in
I put on the same clothes I wore yesterday
When did society decide that we had to change
And wash a tee shirt after every individual use:
If it's not dirty, I'm gonna wear it.

What do I say to that? Молодец! Очень хорошо! Or, in other words (English words)...good work! Why should we wash our clothes unless it looks dirty or smells bad? No reason. Plus, if you do, they wear out, stretch, and fade faster.

When I was younger, I had the mistaken idea that you should change your pants every day. That's ridiculous. Especially when it comes to jeans. I'm grateful to Russia for helping me to overcome this. (No such societal implications there!) You don't need a lot of clothes, or shoes, for that matter. You just need a few essentials, and those essentials should be high-quality and things that you like so you don't mind wearing them often. You can wear them repeatedly and it's completely normal. Also, it's great if you have a lot of variety in those essentials, so you can switch around your ensemble a lot. Basically, I wear my jeans, changing the shirt, over and over and over again until they are smelly, and that takes a while. I also wear jackets repeatedly. I think I exaggerated when I said 20-25 times earlier, but it's often 10 or more. And sometimes, that's 10 times in a row, mind you. Who cares? Probably nobody. But if you do care, don't tell me, because I'm comfortable. Some people have a problem with denim stretching, but I rectify this matter simply by wearing a belt.

Can a beard be worn? Lindsey thinks not.

Enough on that:

Since I do my laundry at my brother's, and since he needed laundry detergent yesterday, I decided to buy some on my way over. That way I could use his when I was there and pay him back for the trouble and expense of having me do my laundry there. I wasn't cheap, either, because I bought the laundry detergent he had and I knew he liked. I stopped at Smith's and got the $10 Tide with 33% more.

I guess I didn't put the lid on tight in between one of my loads. It was set on the dryer and when I went to check on my clothes 40 minutes or so later, the detergent was EVERYWHERE--spilled all over the floor. I think half of the bottle spilled. Five dollars down the drain. It was a ridiculous amount of soap. I got Jon's help and we did our best to clean it up, although the floor was still sticky by the end. My hamper was pretty much ruined so I had to steal a laundry basket from Jon to put my clean clothes in. What a pain.

You know, something like that should be funny--but I'd had it with the day by that time last night, and I was mad that it had happened. Furthermore, it is quite difficult to see your money completely wasted and not know what to do or be able to do anything about it.

I just wanted to go to bed and end the day, but stuff kept happening that made me madder--like the door being locked when I got home. Not a big deal, but I was so upset that I had to put down all of the things I was carrying (a lot of things) and fish out my key and open the door and struggle inside and whatnot.

It's pretty ridiculous to think of it now, but...moments happen. Another one was this morning when I totally biffed (?) it shortly after leaving my house. I was running late but I definitely had to turn around and change my pants because they got dirty. (Dang it! I just did laundry!)

Ridiculous later, but sort of annoying in the moment.

And socks? Well, the past several times that I have worn socks, I have made bad choices about the color. You can usually see my socks through the shoes I have, so it's important that they don't clash with my pants or other outfit parts. And it's been really frustrating because I always am unsatisfied later. I'm not sure why this pattern exists or is continuing, but I have taken off my socks several times in the middle of the day lately, stuffing them into my bag, because I really can't stand it. Maybe I need some new socks, or shoes where socks are unimportant.