I saw it through the kitchen window, one of the patio chairs face down in our now frozen pond, its four legs in the air. The suburbanite in me cringed, but the writer in me hopped and clapped.

Looky looky! The furniture is doing yoga!

I don’t put things away. I forget to winterize. I strew.

But there is one advantage to my mild slobbery—it’s combined with cheerful ADD. My home is unexplored territory. Razor stubble in the sink is a Rorschach test. Pick up a six-month old magazine and shazaam! I just won an iPad.

Another Hunter S. Thompson reference.

Last year I bought a book by a Japanese woman on how to be tidy (it’s around here somewhere) and read it with the same envious fascination as I did Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in my college days, struggling to imagine how wonderful my life would be if only I had an expense account.

For the most part, though, I pity neatniks.

The uncluttered will never experience the Olympic thrill of finding their car keys when they really, really, really need to find their car keys. It’s a feeling that never grows stale. Not even after thousands of discoveries.