This from the Brooklyn Papers, fabulous year-end issue, which has a feisty interview with Marty Markowitz.

In these last
days of the year, Smartmom is busy, busy, busy organizing drawers and
closets. Christmas night, she took all of Oh So Feisty One’s shirts out
of her shirt drawer, refolded them and put them back in by color and
style.

Then she hit the
armoire in the foyer, which is stuffed full of art supplies, children’s
games, and all manner of miscellaneous junk like Littlest Pet Shop
figurines, bottles of dried non-toxic poster paint, file folders filled
with Teen Spirit’s pre-school art, and more ceramic bowls from Paint
Your Own Pottery than anyone could possibly need (Correction: TS’s pre-school art is not junk).

The day after Christmas, Smartmom, re-folded everything in her own shirt and sweater drawers.

Later she went
through Teen Spirit’s dresser and pulled out everything that doesn’t
fit anymore. Black jeans with a size-30 waist: Out. Small or medium
Threadless brand t-shirts: Out (no matter how cool the design).

Then, she put
all these non-fitting items in a bag for Housing Works and folded the
rest. Neat as a pin. It should stay that way for at least five hours.

Later, when OSFO
was busy playing with her new Nintendo DS, Smartmom made a beeline for
the toys on her over-stuffed shelves. Out with the old, in with the
new; Smartmom filled a couple of shopping bags full of toys that OSFO
never touches. She doesn’t have enough space for what’s she’s got let
alone all of her new Christmas and Hanukkah gifts (Uh oh, she noticed…).

So what gives? Why all this straightening?

Smartmom doesn’t need her fabulous therapist to tell her that she gets a feeling of control from all this organizing.

The world is going to hell in a Key Food basket, and there’s not a whole lot she can do about it.

There’s a war on
in Iraq, and hideous conflict all over the world. Global warming is an
inconvenient truth and the Atlantic Yards project was approved. AIDS is
destroying Africa and there are more impoverished people than voters on
American Idol.

There’s little
she feels she can do in her daily life to alleviate the pain and
suffering of those around the world, right around the corner, and in
her very own extended family.

So the cleaning
is her way of coping with feelings of hopelessness. Things may fall
apart and the center may not hold, but, boy, can she re-fold OSFO’s
shirts.

John F. Kennedy
famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you
can do for your country,” but he should have added, “…and when you run
out of ideas, the cabinet underneath the sink is a whopping mess.”

So daily life
goes on. The clock ticks, the Internet connection hums, the children
need dinner and there is the laundry (cleaned at the seriously nice Equadorian laundry on Sixth Avenue) to be put away.

The daily grind
keeps Smartmom going when nothing else does. So, from the home office
on Third Street, here’s Smartmom’s top 10 list of the ordinary things
that helped her get through a lousy 2006:

1. Smartmom’s
solitary first cup of coffee of the day, while listening to NPR in the
kitchen (and the new toaster that doesn’t burn her toast).

2. The innocent
post on Park Slope Parents that sparked a flurry of gender-related
controversy: “Friday, at the corner of 11th Street and Eighth Avenue,
[I found an] adorable navy blue, or maybe black, fleece hat with
triangles jutting out of it of all different colors.” Just don’t call
it a “boy’s” hat in Park Slope!

3. Her daily breakfast conversations with Teen Spirit before OSFO and Hepcat wake up.

4. Running into the oh-so-independent OSFO with her school friends on Seventh Avenue during lunch hour.

5. Watching two-year-old Ducky push her toy stroller and bunny baby down First Street. And Ducky kisses.

6. Hepcat’s photographs of the Gowanus at dusk. And his scallop risotto.

7. Mr. Kravitz’s new kidney courtesy of Mrs. Kravitz.

8. The Smartmom readers who stop her on the street and tell her which column they liked (or didn’t).

9. Standing with OSFO inside a voting booth at John Jay High School and giving George W. Bush a thumpin’.

10. That blessed
time of day when Smartmom clears all the books, coins, and
Build-a-Bears off her bed, lies in it, reads a magazine, and drifts slowly
off to sleep. Ahhhh.