So… the first weird thing is I am quite possibly losing my mind. As part of winter cleaning, I took the coats from the back of the front hall closet out, laid them on the guest bed, and had C review them to see if there were any he wanted to donate.

And two of them, it turns out, are my coats. Which I didn’t know I had and don’t remember getting.

Now, I did just ‘inherit’ some coats from my friend Susan’s late father – one was a brown leather jacket, which I’ve been wearing a lot, and a camelhair formal coat which I’ve not had a chance to wear yet. But these two… one is a similar formal coat, but in grey. This might have been something my own father passed on to me and I’ve never worn, or maybe it’s another one from Susan’s dad. I need to try it on, it may not even fit.

The other is a black leather jacket. Now, I already have a black leather jacket that’s living at the office right now, because there’s a rip in one of the arms and I want to try to get it repaired. And that one, I remember, was a Christmas gift from a few years ago. But I don’t remember where this one came from – maybe it’s one I bought in one of our outlet mall runs (It’s a Wilson) and then stopped using because C gave me the other one. But I don’t remember. Argh. Anyway, plenty of coats, and we do have some to donate, so that’s good.

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So, I’m reading this hilarious m/m romance and it’s crystallized something for me. I think cleaning out a house would be a fun thing to do. The house in the book is a hoarder’s nightmare, so that might be too much, but something about the idea of dealing with a house that someone has left behind, with all the detritus of their life – going through all the rooms, inventorying all the useful things and passing them on to people who want them, getting rid of the junk, shredding old papers and so on, just seems like something that I would be not only really good at, but would probably love.

Susan (whose dad’s coats I now have) is currently shrieking in horror as she reads this, since she’s spent the last two years dealing with her parents’ old house, getting it ready for sale. But that’s different: there’s a huge emotional connection there with the house and all the things. I don’t expect it’s going to be easy to clear out a loved one’s house, not at all. But just a random person’s house, especially if there’s no one around to shriek, ‘no, don’t throw THAT [useless thing] out’, that’s something I could get behind.

Having never actually done this, it’s entirely possible that the reality of this would be pretty awful, aside from the emotional component. But again, it’s weird, but I think it’s something I would enjoy doing. Another project for retirement: is there such a thing as a volunteer hoarder-house cleaning crew?

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Snowy and blowy here in the big city. C and I both love snow, and we don’t have to go out in it or shovel it, so we’re delighted. We’ve been planning for a week now, since hearing the forecast, to have grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup in front of a fire (our first of the season) tonight. So that will be lovely.