I'm so overwhelmed by everything coming out of Washington—soon, all state capitals?—that I want to return to this thread...so I can think about something I can control, perhaps...the way dishes look on a table.

I am a dish queen. When I was young, I wrote radio and television commercials for a major department store (before Federated/Macy's took everything over). I loved watching people shop at the store, and when I started, I would spend part of my Saturdays there, just observing. My favorite thing was to watch the salespeople in the china department arrange placesettings for brides and grooms to be.

As a boy, I'd always enjoyed helping my grandmother get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I would polish the silver, wipe down the glassware after she washed it by hand—just the total MARY!!! holiday package.

When it came time for me to buy my own dishes, I got a set of clear tempered glass Italian dinnerware, Oxford, from Bormioli. I liked Italian things and I wanted something inexpensive, as I thought I would be moving cross-country soon.

After the move and a gay divorce, I bought Colorstax from Metlox, in pink; rose, they called it. (More MARY!) I'd never liked white plates as much as colorful ones. What I wanted was Fiesta, but they weren't making it new at the time (early '80s), and I wasn't much of a second-hand shopper.

Most of the Colorstax broke in the dishwasher, and eventually, Fiesta started producing again for Bloomingdale's. I ended up buying the Fiestaware I'd always wanted, in turquoise, my favorite color.

I've given away or sold other sets of more formal dinnerware I acquired over the years. I was never a very formal sort of dish queen, really. Now I have some Colorstax left (enough for 8 or 10) and the turquoise Fiesta for four. I want to give more away. I have a young man who likes the Colorstax I've already given him (I really stocked up when I found eBay in the early 2000s), and I could just call him to come over for some more, but I'm afraid of giving away too much.

I'm kind of depressed, and when I get this way, one of the things I do is get rid of stuff. I get this urge to compress myself into such a small ball, I could put myself in my pocket and just walk away.

I think I'll wait.

I'm not the "I'm so depressed" troll, btw.