Follow the journalist's journey from By Katie Couric
After a lifetime of battling clutter, Katie's declared that enough is enough. Left, Katie, eating dinner on the floor of her home office, amid her piles. Photo by Meredith Kennedy.
When I lived in Washington, DC, after college, my then-roommate called me "Pig-Pen." It was a well-deserved nickname: A few months prior, as a senior at the University of Virginia, I'd lived on The Lawn, a particularly picturesque area of campus. Outside my dorm room were pristine pavilions and lush, grassy courts. But inside my room was a mess of epic proportions. Three Mile Island was an easier cleanup.
On graduation day, my parents were driving down from our home in Arlington, VA. I figured I had about an hour to create some semblance of cleanliness-or at least an upgrade from biohazard status. I stowed clothes in drawers, stuffed papers and books in cubbies, and came up with what I thought was a really creative way to tackle my pile of dirty dishes: I hid them in the trunk of my
