crazywonderful

On Saturday, whilst up to my elbows in rubber gloves (a non-sanctioned concession to my pansy-ass wish to retain a fully intact dermal layer), I was thinking that it may not be so much the desire to purify my environs that drives me as it is a prenatally developed addiction to bleach fumes. Imagine a crack baby fathered by Mr. Clean, and welcome to my world.
I have to admit that I’m not particularly well organized or even very neat. But when it comes to banishing dirt I am detail-oriented and thoroughly trained. Like my mother and her mother before her, I possess many products with prominent bony hand warnings and rags that long for the days when the worst action they saw was riding around on someone’s ass. I’ve been told that I’ll make some man a good little wife someday, and I myself feel quite comfortable guaranteeing, at the very least, a superior janitor.
When things get cleaned at our place, they get cleaned well. As for the timing of things being cleaned, it’s semi-weekly, or right before someone visits, whichever happens to come first. Lately the task of inspiring frenzies falls to my guests, with the number of people I consider ‘guests’ dropping into the low ones or twos. As Martha would say, it’s a good thing.
I hosted a friend’s birthday two or three years ago, attended by many people who had never been to my house before and a truly frightening number of them commented specifically on how clean the place was. After the third repetition I wanted to duck into the nearest deserted room so I could pull up the collar of my shirt and whisper, “Beam me up! Beam me up! They’ve discovered I’m not one of them!” just in case those tidy alien fuckers who left me here had finally come back for their friendly little Spot.
But cleanliness wasn’t the problem, being next to godliness and all, and neither, really, was people thinking I was a freak, the problem was, I’d been a relentless bitch to Laura while getting ready that evening because I’d been so stressed about things being Clean, and they were now so Clean that they were weirding people out. (Cleaning moodiness alone would make me go on record as saying anyone who has cohabited with me and not killed me with a spoon should be considered for sainthood about five lifetimes ago.)
The good news is, I have relaxed a lot since the days of being Very Angry if I got home and the bed wasn’t made by She Who Loathed Making It (which I decided – sans consultation – was her duty because she happened to be the one who got out of bed last). There are still peculiarities that could stand to be ironed out, but things have definitely improved. The bed thing, for example. If I came home to an unmade bed I was irritated mainly because of the waste of energy it was to make it so late in the day, when it could have been sitting there made all day long while we weren’t home. All those lost hours of made-ness! (What the hell was she thinking?) That shit doesn’t happen anymore, and not just because of my relentless training schedule for the Slumber Olympics.
The bad news is, while watching out of control and nonsensical things riding roughshod over my existence lately WITHOUT FIRST WIPING THEIR BLOODY HOOVES OFF ON THE MAT PLACED AT THE DOOR EXPRESSLY FOR THAT PURPOSE, I’ve noticed an alarming pull toward old compulsions and I’m a little worried I will soon find myself careening downhill toward the intersection of Filthy and Scrubbing.
So just in case I vanish – and really, is there a better way for an obsessive compulsive user of detergents to go? – I’ve prepared a little something for my well-polished marker stone:
A WORRIED AND QUITE WORDY SOUL
AND ALSO RATHER KEEN
WE’RE NOT QUITE SURE
WHICH WAY SHE WENT
BUT DAMN, SHE LEFT IT CLEAN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Questioning/Examining:
XBox or Playstation2?
Grateful/Relieved:
For email.
Regret/Deny:
Recent lame attempts to cheer up a crying coworker. Who wants to be comforted by having their arm vigorously rubbed? God, sometimes I suck.
Musing/Reflecting:
It’s kind of cool that “Get the fuck out of my house” can be a term of endearment.
Whistling/Humming:
Hotel California – Eagles
Reading/Scanning:
I am going to assume that I am the only gal I’ve ever met who’s read Woman: an Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier, because the thought that someone I know, love or even pass on the street has read it and not stopped me to say, ‘You have to read this book’ is far too painful to bear.
Shout out to:
Nethers, visiting us shortly via dial-up. So, like Newfoundland on the CBC, about half an hour later.