1 rubber band.
1 tube of Burt’s Bees chapstick.
1 package of ear plugs, containing 10 orange ear plugs. The package says they are “ideal for: sleeping, landscaping, home improvement, shooting sports, and travel.” Which means they’re useful for being asleep, being awake, being at home, being away from home, and shooting things. This is an impressive range of uses.
1 empty jelly glass, sitting on a postcard used as a coaster. The postcard is from a local running store, promoting a series of trail runs.
2 small bumper stickers, also promoting trail runs.
3 pairs of Jeanine’s socks.
8 unmatched socks.
1 pair of khaki shorts, which used to be long pants. I cut them off when the bottom hem got overly frayed, and my mother hemmed them for me as a birthday present.My mom once made clothes for my brothers and me out of curtains that were left behind by the previous owners of a house we bought.
1 blue pullover sports shirt, a present from Jeanine at my last birthday.
4 pens.
1 bottle of not very effective melatonin.
1 bottle of generic Benadryl, more effective as a sleep aid than melatonin, but with questionable side effects.
3 issues of New Yorker magazine, partially read. Even insomniacs can’t finish reading an entire New Yorker.
5 books: The Bible (the Oxford Annotated edition of the Revised Standard Version); Nan Merrill’s Psalms for Praying (paraphrases of all 150 Psalms, highly recommended); A Shimmer of Something, a book of poetry by Brian Doyle; Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a book about writing (don’t blame her for this list; it’s not one of her suggestions); Chi Running, by Ashevilleians Danny and Katherine Dreyer (I trained for a marathon with Danny in 2013).
1 pair of scissors.
1 silver cup, called, I think, a Jefferson Cup, with an engraved “J,” a gift from my chorus teacher, Mrs. Buckner (Dorothy Mae to her friends and, behind her back, to her students), on the occasion of my high school graduation, filled now with coins, 2 paper clips, and a single AA battery.
8 business cards, in a stack.
2 sample packs of Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen, from last year’s skin screening with my dermatologist. I’m sure she would prefer it be on my neck rather than on my dresser.
1 travel size tube of Crest toothpaste, from the goodie bag the dental hygienist gave me at my last teeth-cleaning.
1 hair trimmer, still in the box.
1 black Under Armour headband, a gift from my father-in-law. I told him I was thinking about getting a brain brace, for my failing memory, similar to a knee brace for a gimpy knee, and he bought me this.
1 clothespin.
1 rock.
0 car keys.