Spring break is over, chaps. It’s time to ditch Cabo and get your tanned butts back to the Farm where the water is clean enough to drink, so you can put a lid on all jokes professing the relative healthiness of tequila over the tap water south of the border.

I didn’t go anywhere exotic or “collegiate” this year. Unlike some guys I know, I did not have to pay off the corrupt Mexican policia several Ben Franklins worth of pesos to avoid arrest on multiple occasions, nor are there spanking new pics of me and Jose C. tagged on Facebook. Nope, I mostly stayed on campus, lounging around and watching one-day rentals from Green.

I did manage to accomplish one concrete task, however—I cleaned my room. Now, I know this doesn’t sound like much of a feat to you neatfreak, borderline OCD, anal-retentive model citizens who populate the Stanford campus, with your pristine handwriting, fancy-schmancy mechanical pencils with nanosized lead, and good trash-disposal habits, but some of us are less concerned with such matters, so a thorough room cleaning is a fearsome event.

In case you haven’t been reading the news (i.e., the Style section of The New York Times), mess is the new black. Or, alternatively, clutter is hotter. There’s a fascinating new book out called “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder,” which I haven’t actually read. But the theory (pseudo-theory) it advances is fascinating enough to merit discussion.

According to the authors, empirical studies have shown that messy people are often more successful than their neatfreak colleagues, largely due to efficiency losses on the part of the latter, who waste time and energy (which equal money) organizing their desks and workspaces.

Other theories suggest that people compelled to constantly keep their environment squeaky clean are simply acting out of an inability to focus on the task at hand—they get distracted and fool themselves into productivity with superfluous organization. I’m sure these are the same suckers who buy stuff on infomercials.

Additional claims mentioned in The Times review were equally humorous and ego-stroking; e.g., we creatures of clutter are more creative, mentally limber and better parents than our organization-minded brethren. Conversely, the neatnik crowd is, on the whole, a “humorless” and “inflexible” bunch with too much free time. I really loved that one.

But before you all flip out and call me a lazy heathen, I should qualify my remarks. First of all, I rarely buy the conclusions drawn in popular “studies” about living and health that show up in the newspaper or on Yahoo.com. Second, for every argument against neatfreakism, there are several more classic arguments against lazy slobs like me.

I just happen to find the old arguments less convincing. According to a study cited by the National Association of Professional Organizers (a truly sorry lot, no doubt), “two-thirds of respondents believed workers with messy desks were seen as less career-driven than their neater colleagues.” Well, aside from the fact that I’m probably one of the least career-driven individuals you’ll ever meet at Stanford, I find it difficult to take seriously any statement characterizing the “beliefs” of an unknown sample of workers about how their colleagues are “seen.” Yes, that tells me oh so much. Let me counter with a handy little quotation from my buddy Einstein, who was himself no slouch: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?”

Nevertheless, I sucked it up this week, took out the trash, vacuumed the floor, washed my sheets and—gasp—cleaned up my desk, which had been out of commission for over a quarter. I’m happy to say that I was almost proud of my efforts—proud enough to tell my mom over the phone. With complete seriousness, she replied: “That’s great! Have you heard of something called Spring Cleaning?” I gruffly barked back: “Yes. I have. Obviously.”

If there were a moral to the story, it would be that moderation is the key—there has to be some semblance of balance between neatness and mess. I’m always surprised at the sheer imbalance of personality types among the Stanford population, though. Aside from the hippie/stoner denizens of a few choice residences, the people here are scarily neat, at least by my rather low standards.

I guess a little Spring Cleaning never hurt anyone, and it’s a good way to usher in the new quarter—a quarter ripe with opportunities to clutter my spacious one-room double all over again.

Oh, and if you happen to be my new roommate (my old roomie is off to Beijing) whom I’ve yet to meet, please take this column with a grain of a salt—I promise to keep the place livable.

Alex is writing this column from a desk he hasn’t used in a quarter. But if you can relate to the mess-monger within him, send him an email at acoley09@stanford.edu.