In a nice confluence of virtual and real life, I actually cleaned out my closet last week. I’m pretty sure the title for this series was somehow related to the three piles of clothes hulking over my bed that I chose to ignore in favor of writing about the Compact. When I take a look at my wardrobe up close and personal, it becomes pretty obvious that I could make it off the grid and still do just fine.

Last week was about unblocking some chi (more on that another time), most of which had been bottled up in Chris and my super-functional bedroom closet. I’m going with “super-functional” because it goes above and beyond its call to duty. Not only does it house Chris’ collection of historic shirts (not to be confused with his collection of historic T-shirts, which is currently found under our bed), my clothes, and a surprising stash white kid gloves (three pairs, opera-length included), recently it’s been home to a large bag of spring clothes that I wasn’t sure about last April (not one to rush into karmic tinkering here), Chris’s ski pants (we haven’t been skiing since March 2005, but I’m only willing to put away the girls’ ski clothes), and his drums.

Did you catch that, dear reader? If you didn’t, let me say it again: Chris has been keeping his drums in our closet. Two toms, a snare, and a bass drum. All snuggled together in a closet not big enough for our clothes. Never fear: the trap kit was still out in the garage, along with the cymbals, so it was only ridiculous, not insane. Ridiculous to the point where I couldn’t take down one of my boxes of winter clothes this year because it was holding the bass drum in place. Getting dressed for church might have been a bit more inspiring with one decent skirt to choose from this winter. I got the second box down last week, because the drums have been returned to active duty for their annual appearance in PTA Spring Fling Band. In box two, I discovered my favorite find from last year (perfect avocado wool waffle, above the knee, cute), only to realize that it was now 85 degrees and there would be no call for a beautifully lined wool skirt any day soon.

Some of you might think of the super-functional closet as more than a bit dysfunctional. That’s your right. But the silver lining of Chris’s need to hold on to every pair of sneakers and dress pants he’s ever owned (yes, you read that right–Chris owns “dress pants”–which may come as something of a surprise to those of you who have ever seen him) and my refugee-like refusal to let go of the coats (what if I move back to the homeland someday?) is a closet that contains the Laws of Shoe Karma.

Let’s begin with an illustration:

Above, you see my left foot in my four year old pair of Reef flip flops. They are pink with cute beading. If I had mad skills, I would have created an inset close-up of the break in the beading just below the toe thong (that sounds so racey).

Below, both feet sport the brand spanking new pair of Dr. Scholl’s I picked up the Friday before (with the lovely Brenda Griffth on her Austin shopping spree).

I bought the Dr. Scholl’s before I opened the closet to discover what could come out of it and I was completely uneasy about them: A) They were an impulse buy, spurred by a sale and my commitment to pink shoes. Generally, I hate anything I buy on impulse. I like to turn clothes into the Holy Grail; witness my fall-long search for black boots. B) I already had a pair of cute pink “slides” with pink lucite heels, so I didn’t need an “evening” pink shoe. I was in violation in my own sense of shoe karma. C) I already had a pair of turquoise Dr. Scholl’s that I’ve worn to death over the past couple of summers. Make note of the phrase “worn to death.”

One of the reasons the Compact is probably not the organization for me is my tortured relationship with shopping. I am a horrible shopper. Yet, I find incredibly great stuff which, upon rare occasion, I give myself permission to buy. Most of the time I buy crap and return it. The horrible part is the torture. I cannot stop asking myself, “Couldn’t I find something better?” Holy Grail Syndrome, we’ll call it. That’s why I buy crap most of the time, so I know with certainty that I could find something better but resigned myself to thriftiness as the achievement. It has a very Penury feel to it.
One of the by-products of this Holy Grail/Penury Syndrome is a pathetic difficulty in accepting when something is worn out. Once I’ve found the perfect sweater, after going through the months of deliberation, the repeated visitations at the favorite store and the risky, maybe I can wait ’til it’s on sale delays, once I’ve actually committed to buying it, I want this sweater to last a lifetime. I do not have the heart or the time to go through the process of finding a replacement. Conversely, once I’ve settled on something cheap that I can stand to wear, the idea of going through all those crappy Exhilaration piles again is most dispiriting.

You might think this tortured shopping life would make the Compact a good call. However, I believe the Compact would only exacerbate my navel-gazing, don’t-spend-money, I’ll-never-look-good-enough-to-pass-as-an-Upper-East-Sider-again borderline personality. Basically, I’m trying to spend less time consciously contemplating the aquisition of goods, especially clothes, less time combining morality and appearance. Every time I get dressed in great clothes, I feel like a modern day Hester Prynne. All I can think is, “They can see my weakness here. I spent money on clothes. I’m damned and they know it. But I look good, don’t I?”

I’m cultivating my inner Hindu when it comes to clothes–keep manifesting the beauty of the universe, in technicolor whenever possible. Nothing like a beautifully turned out Indian grandmother to put a skinny black-clad Uberblonde to shame (see NYT Sunday Style section, 4/9). But being Hindu means the laws of karma apply. What comes around goes around.

Getting rid of things might be harder than shopping.

This is when having a What Not to Wear Friend becomes essential. The WNTW Friend comes over to give the final thumbs up or down on the shit that leaves me like my busted Tivo. I call the WNTW Friend when the piles have been out for about a week or so and I can no longer tell myself that I’ll get through the clothes before bed tonight. I called her last week and she agreed to come over on Thursday. This meant that I spent the two hours that I should have been helping the girls with their homework and getting supper in them before their volleyball game going through the piles. Making new piles. Hanging wrinkled shirts in the closet, just so the WNTW Friend would not see them and know that if I’d get off my lazy ass and just iron, I’d have a killer shirt collection (one to rival the museum installation hanging on Chris’s wall).

Ms. WNTW came right on time. The dogs were outside, the dishes in the sink, the Potemkin Village of order erected to lure her into a false sense that I had things under control. She came up to my room, told me it was time to part with a favorite skirt, and the gates opened. We made it through the “What Do You Think of This Skirt” section in no time. These skirts had been in the drum-buttress box, so it wasn’t so much about “I didn’t really wear this this winter, should it go?” as “Wow, that’s really a wonderful skirt. Wouldn’t it have been great to wear it?” It was like some weird, rarely practiced cleansing ritual only performed after the cicada cycle has been completed.

Once we’d made it through the skirts and the sweaters and the things set aside last spring that I hadn’t had the heart to admit were over, forcing me to stumble on the bag anytime I needed a coat (not too often, this warm, skirtless winter), I decided to pull out the shoes. First came the boots, whom I lined up and addressed as a group of friends. I love the boots. This was a banner winter for them. I’d managed a near-perfect cheapo replacement purchase. (The motorcycle boots from when Emma was one were no longer an option.) But, more impressively, I’d found the Grail–the sexy black boots that were that obscure object of desire for over two years. Turns out I’m a round-toe downtowner–who knew?–which explains why every pointy pair left me feeling like the poser they clearly made me out to be.

As I put my five pairs of friends away (see you in November, ladies), the summer squad came out the the translucent Dillards bag that’s served as off-season shoe storage for the past four years. I think that’s about the last time I shopped at Dillards. For Miss Rags to Riches, it’s either Old Navy or By George.

Ms. WNTW complimented the red leather wedges and the orange slides, so I started to feel pretty confident. I decided to keep the pink Reefs out of the pagent, given the beading situation and Ms. WNTW’s strict standards for embelliment. After last spring’s bargain/mistake squishy cherry slides were designated to the pile for our friend whose style is known as Amish Whore (they’ll appeal to the harlot inside the farmwife), I pulled out the turquoise Dr. Scholl’s.

“You’ve worn those to death.”

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

The tone in Ms. WNTW’s voice made it perfectly clear that she would prefer to never see me in them again.

“Maybe you could find some new ones.”

The pink ones were still downstairs, in the box in the bag next to the front door, so I could get them out of here as quickly as possible. Who me? No, I never bought an unnecessary pair of pink Dr. Scholl’s on sale at Nordstrom’s when a perfectly good pair of turquoise ones were waiting to be sprung from their Persephone-like semi-annual exile to the Dillards bag Hades. No, I’m not some frivolous shoe shopper who actually allows herself the pleasure of buying new shoes without paying a SEVERE MORAL COST for SEVERAL WEEKS BEFOREHAND. No, officer, that was some other fucked up shoe lover.

“I found pink ones at Nordstrom’s the other day, but they didn’t have turquoise.”

Who in her right mind believes the only valid replacement for the shoes that gave her much happiness and looked very good several years ago is another pair of the exact same shoes? Who doesn’t go, “Hey, I can replace the blue ones with the pink ones?” Who doesn’t see Dr. Scholl’s as Dr. Scholl’s, the clogs of summer?
The woman who has a bunch of boots for friends. She’s the one who, once the boots head north for winter, whoops it up with her summer buddies. I bet you already know what color they are.

Buying pink shoes brings me a combination of ecstasy and self-loathing that would make St. Theresa proud. Red shoes make me feel whole, like the person I am and cannot help but be. I’d love a closet full of nothing but red shoes because red shoes have balls. I look for them ceaselessly but the ones meant for me are far and few between. The bar was set by a pair of raspberry Dries Van Noten T-straps reduced from $198 to $45–the Yin and Yang, the Alpha and Omega, the ultimate shoe for the deal of the century. When I find red shoes, I contemplate long and hard before I buy, like those red flip flops that started this whole business off. Buying red shoes is like taking a bite from the apple.
The red flip flops. What of the red flip flops?

I didn’t buy the red flip flops that day because I’d been hoodwinked by the pink Dr. Scholl’s. They were on sale; they made noise. But the real deal is that they were pink and I couldn’t resist them. Not many women wear pink shoes, and I’ve never had the nerve to ask anyone else. I’m a weakling and I can’t walk on by. Red shoes are who I want to be, pink shoes are who I am.

Sweet, childish, silly, goofy pink shoes.

Sexy, cool, knockout, intense red shoes.

Who’d want to be pink shoes if she knew about red ones? Nobody. Being pink shoes if you’re also white shoes and beige shoes is fantastic, a great adventure, a lark, a breath of fresh air. Being pink shoes if you’re also red shoes is pathetic. You’re red shoes–what are you doing playing around in the minor leagues? When will you ever grow up? Come on, they’re pink, for God’s sake.

But I cannot be red shoes all the time. Pink are red’s nice younger sister who’ll help you set up for a party, the ones who with a good sense of humor. Pink brings something she cooked to the potluck; red picks up from the to-go case on the way. Red always has someplace else she’d rather be. Pink’s just happy to be invited.

The pink Dr. Scholl’s were a sign of weakness, another capitulation. Their color overrode everything. They could not be a replacement for the turquoise because the turquoise were members of that most valuable of all clans, the not-pinks. The pinks were their enemies. And I hated to see the not-pinks lose another battle.

Ms. WNTW left. The rejects had to be contained and removed before they could make their way back in the closet. I got the bags downstairs, beyond the dog gate, safely on the way out. Back in my room, I decided to put everything away NOW, not later, when doubt could edge her way back in and give me the whammy. It was time to be done.

The shoe storage situation is not quite as awesome as it sounds. All the winter shoes don’t really fit in the bag and this year’s additions to the boot posse only made things worse. The red Danskos had to stay down on the rack, alongside the mud-bottomed red shit kicker/picker/stickers (crap free, at least), but I had to find room for the summer team.

That’s when I took the Tevas (mistake–I hate the way they look too much to accept their functionality–that’s why I bought them so completely on sale) and moved them behind the sneakers. And there were the pink Reefs, with their unmistakably water-stained sides. They used to be bright and cheerful, perfect companions for my walk towards diaphonous tunics and sequined skirts, guides to unlocking the Lakshmi within.

If I couldn’t even show them to Ms. WNTW, were they still able guides? Would people see wealth and beauty when I wore them? Were they a worthy offering?

Perhaps it was their time to go. Were their able replacements waiting in a box down by the front door? Perhaps shoes should not be subject to the rigors of Resurrection, the absolute raising of the corpse to pre-death perfection. Death happens. Heels wear. Styles go out of fashion. Maybe shoes come back in a different form to continue their dharma. Maybe even pink shoes have a soul.

So now, after I hit save for the last time, I will climb over the dog gate and head to the front door. I’ll take the pink Dr. Scholl’s out of the box that’s still in the bag, carry them upstairs, and place them in spot waiting for them the closet. They’ll make noise when I walk. They’ll be welcome at the party. They won’t be cool but they will be beautiful. Even though they’re pink.

Many of you would probably find this situation unacceptable. Most of you would fix this problem within a week or so of its emergence. We have been living like this for months.

The heart of the matter is the Time Warner DVR that we have running alongside the Tivo. We got the DVR because, well, it has something to do with digital cable, the Tour de France, and our HD signal. In other words, this problem is caused by Tech Support Guy’s inherent need to maximize the complexity of our recording capibilities. In other words, this is Chris’s problem–one, I feel, he both caused and should fix.

Which leaves me with no recording of my friends’ appearance on the Today Show. On a normal morning, I might have remembered to turn on the TV so my digital recording device, the one I’m supposed to be able to program weeks in advance and enjoy fresh episodes of the Daily Show at my leisure, to record. Just the way I tried to remind myself on Monday night after posting about the Compact and Rosedale and my love of shoes. But last Tuesday was not a normal morning because Chris failed to set his alarm. He woke up with fifteen minutes to get out of the house and make a plane to L.A. My attention was diverted to his coffee and getting the girls going.
Plus, I had to go into my DeLay induced
I forgot about the care and feeding of the Tivo.

So, now I can’t tell you about how great it was to see my friends on the Today Show. I can tell you how ridiculous it is to have two digital recording devices that are less functional that a programmable VCR.

Superpower-wise, Sarah’s hair was fabulous, apparently.

Combine one Yahoo group, one article in the San Francisco Chronicle, another in USA Today, and one clever man whose avatar is called Miles Standish, and what do you get? How about “123 New Members - 3 New Links - 729 New Messages” in the last seven days. It’s not just a movement; it’s a phenomenon.

What I like best about The Compact is its “click.” When you hear what they’re doing, you can’t help but have an a-ha moment. It’s The Feminine Mystique for the Super-Size Nation.

(I’ve been questioning my desire for red flip flops for over a week now. I know I’ll end up working some karma mojo on myself so I can get them. Prematurely Grey is nothing if not predictable in her worship of footwear.)

What I find most interesting is the fact that the basic awareness and behaviors behind by The Compact are not all that revolutionary in my neighborhood. We share tools (we own a lawnmower jointly with one of our neighbors and my paella pan’s always up for grabs), hand down children’s clothes (had a nice bag of girls’ ski clothes on my porch the first 90° Saturday of March–the one when Chris had the SXSW migraine), and pass books between each other until I have no idea where most of my favorites are. Obviously, buying nothing new is a major commitment that may make our neighborhood sharing seem gestural. However, it is not. In fact, I think the way we live in my neighborhood may be more revolutionary than The Compact and more difficult to achieve.

My neighborhood is called Rosedale. It’s in central Austin, about two miles from the University of Texas. Most of the houses were built in the early 1940s, with a few older and a few newer. They were small, post-Depression, no frills homes, built to house the growth of Austin. For much of its history, Rosedale was a pretty low-rent area; the University crowd flocked to our east in the Victorians and bungalows of Hyde Park, the politicos went to west Tarrytown on the other side of the Missouri-Pacific line. A friend of mine who grew up in Tarrytown told me recently that Rosedale was the white trash neighborhood of Austin while she was growing up. The literal wrong side of the tracks.
Well, fast forward to the present where $200 per square foot is the norm. There’s something of a great dividing line between those of us who came before Dell and those who came after. We’re in the after category. But even though we’re in the after category, we still send our children to the same neighborhood public school, we hang out at the same public pool, and subscribe to the same neighborhood listserv. We know about each others yards and remodels, lost dogs and broken water line troubles (we’re having a real problem with old pipes around here), sofas for free, and new little restaurants that we can walk to.

What’s so interesting to me is that we’ve chosen to live in these funky smaller houses that require a level of tolerance that must spill over into other areas. These little houses have been expanded some, but most don’t have garages attached to the house. I’d bet more than half the houses in Rosedale don’t have functional garages at all. The majority of people here have to walk from their car to their front door. And that’s what makes us so weird. We see other people walking their dogs, pushing strollers, going for a run as we make that tiny walk. We see our next door neighbors.

This now-strange way of life was what I believe living in a town used to be like. You know your neighbors. You look out for the kids. You pitch in when needed. You share what you have.

The Compact is making use of networked communities to promote “flight from the consumer grid.” People post about what they find on Craig’s List (apparently everything) and thrift shops. Presumably, they’re finding it in the Yahoo group, when they voice a need and someone answers it. That would explain the 176 messages on the site that have been posted in April. In case you’re wondering, that’s in the last three days.

Building communities is at the heart of what’s happening online right now. That’s what MySpace and Friendster are all about. Figuring out how to make a living through these networked communities is the next wave of commerce. It’s what all the cool kids are doing (us included). But I wonder about building communities on blocks, in grocery stores and libraries and taco stands. Those communities allow us to share not only things and ideas but light and rain coming soon and the endless headache of road construction. I wonder, if people get too caught up in the community they find on their laptop, will they miss the one outside their front door? Do they know what they could have?