Clutter, Clutter everywhere and not a spot to sit....

Clutter, clutter everywhere and not a spot to sit.

Here’s another one; No one notices what you do until you stop doing it. I don’t know if these are exact quotes (actually, the first is my personal rendition upon noticing my living space, the second is questionable), I don’t know who first uttered these apropos clichés, and I don’t know why, despite really disliking becoming a cliché, I can’t find the motivation/energy/determination to stand up and reestablish order in my living room.

The sheer overwhelming apathy that has settled upon my broom and mop is oppressive. These fine instruments of cleanliness are now heavy and unbearable; impossible to even push along my laminate flooring, devoid of any hope of gliding along the blond oak colored floating floor.

See, its not that I am ‘dirty’. I hate a sink full of dishes. Yes, I know I have posted many, many pictures of sink loads of dishes, but I put those dishes, however desultorily, into the dishwasher every evening. I hate ring around the toilet, sink and bathtub and will begrudgingly whip out solvent chemicals to shine our porcelain throne. I will hand scrub a pot or pan that our dishwasher failed to clean, and then run it through again for good measure. And our trash is taken out – almost with OCD-type frequency. So, you see, not ‘dirty’ in the sense that our home is unclean, just cluttered – in the sense of untidy, unkempt, disordered and in disarray.

I know that this is directly related to and resulting from way too much stuff in way to small of space. For instance, the clutter counter-tops have cereal and snack boxes that can not squeeze into my over-stuffed pantry, recycle bottles that wont fit into our recycle bag and books that have no home on my bookshelves. The sloppy sidebar is covered in small gadgets, gizmos and house wares that I would prefer stored inside the sidebar and not on top, but have been displaced by a newer, larger purchase. The coffee table is just a catchall for mail, work, journals, magazines and anything else that is transient. The pile of stuff in the corner by my couch is an accumulation of keep-my-hands-busy-while-avoiding-housework projects, mostly knitting, crocheting, reading/writing projects, that I like to keep close at hand when watching my favorite tv shows or movies streaming on my computer.

Let me emphasize, I can keep an immaculately clean house – I just feel uninspired to do so at the moment. This past week I was tending to the most adorable and joyful of family obligations, babysitting, and as a result spent very little time over the last five days in my own home. During this time, it has become apparent to me what I do manage to accomplish daily, but to my husband, all he sees is what hasn’t been done and what has accrued all over our limited flat surfaces. So, however disheartened I am to become a cliché, especially these two, I must acquiesce to the fact that it is a cliché because it’s true. 

Toast!

So, this morning I was yanked from dreadful nightmares by my beautiful husband's silly grin, inches from my face, pleading for me to wake and brew him coffee and butter him toast.

First lets start with just how awful it is to startle me awake. Let's set aside for a moment the nightmares. I am an incredibly physically reactive individual. I don't know why, but I respond to stimuli with a variety of punches, kicks, slaps, knee jerks, jumps, ducks, elbow smashes, twirly spins and upper cuts, depending on circumstance.

For instance, once in the not too distant past, I was (begrudgingly) bent over the washing machine doing my husband's laundry. The water was running, filling in the tub and making quite a bit of noise as it cascaded into the aluminum drum already filled with his filthy work clothes. Honestly, I could hear nothing but the water. When I felt a - presence. I turned at the uneasy feeling and being taken by surprise and completely jolted by a body standing in front of me when I didn't expect it, my fists struck. I couldn't help it, I didn't plan it, I just did it. My reaction was severe, I admit. I punched my dear husband in the chest, leaving quite the black and blue where my knuckles landed on his sternum. He was just saying hello as he had just gotten home. I wasn't trying to hurt him, but he wore the bruise for about two weeks following. I guess its good to have such highly tuned self-defense reflexes. If only my groom would remember my tendency to punch first and ask questions second.

So, this morning was no exception. My darling sweet husband leaned in close to my face to wake me, I was startled and I clobbered him - and the nightmares of zombies, monsters and psycho-ax murders on the chase only helped to improve my accuracy.

After I helped my husband up off the floor, then hollered at him for scaring me, then thanked him for interrupting a nightmare, I agreed to brew his coffee and butter his toast for breakfast to help ease the guilt  of planting a solid knuckled punch right to his gut.

Guilt aside, it is rather annoying to be woken up specifically to make breakfast for a grown man who is capable of rebuilding a transmission. Seriously, he can make his own toast. But today, his grin, too close to my nose, translated into a guilt-ridden wife and a tower of buttered cinnamon toast and large travel mug of Kona coffee, all made just the way he likes it.

Let's just hope for his sake, he doesn't make a habit out of these methods.....

The Better Bride

I have seen mile-stone celebrations many times. Weddings, bat mitzvahs, baby showers, first birthdays, and I can't help but notice that there is wide spread competition between people to have the most unique, most expensive, most special, etc., etc. The point of the celebration is being lost for the display. And that is fine by me; until the facade extends beyond the fondant sculptures, flowers, lighting design and centerpieces.

You have a friend just like her. I know you do. We all know that one woman. She is attractive, smart (not dim enough to wonder if the can has tuna or chicken in it based on the brand, but no rocket scientist either. The misogynistic, traditionally acceptable smart-enough-for-a-woman smart.) and sweet. Oh, so sweet. Saccharine, really. The one who makes diplomacy look like an invitation to a schoolyard brawl.

I have that friend, too, and she is getting married. I am very happy for her and her groom, and truly wish them a lifetime of lovely memories and hope for them all that they want. But the more encounters I have with her during the months coming up to her wedding the more I want to stick a pencil in my ear. I am not very close to this woman and as such, lucky enough to have not been asked to be a bridesmaid, the torturous positions are held by sorority sisters, cousins, childhood friends and co-workers (There are about 12 bridesmaids). So, I do not know what it is like on the inside, though I can't imagine that her drippingly sweet speeches and close-to-tears expressions of sentiment flow as freely as they did during her exorbitant and pretentious bridal shower.

My interactions with her in the past have been limited, as our acquaintance is a web designed of six degrees of separation. She has always been incredibly sweet, not polite, not well-mannered - sweet. Beyond sweet, mawkish. Though somewhere buried beneath that soppy, nauseatingly sugary veneer lies a harridan, a spoiled brat intent on having her wildest whims catered to.

I can't help but wonder, which is better, the honest and flawed individual, or the devious and camouflaged? Which is the better bride, the overtly obnoxious or the secretly saccharin? As I reflect on this weekend's events, I am chagrined to admit, each must be tedious in their own way.

Married but lonely.... really?

I am home most days, looking forward to the trip to the grocery store because it serves two purposes: one, I get to leave my house without feeling guilty about wasting gas in this crazy economy with crazy expensive gas prices that continue to rise with no income of my own to speak of; and two, I get to shop. Unadulterated, unabashed shopping. I don't have to scour ads for deals because I rarely buy foods that have a manufacturers coupon. I get to buy what I want, when I want with little to no explanation and justification to my rightfully-so penny pincher of a husband.

So, yeah, I'm bored. I still avoid the housework, even though it would certainly give me something to do, it doesn't quite provide the type of stimulation I would prefer. So I spend time looking for and applying for work online. Then, after three hours of job search, I spend about eight hours surfing - the net. Just researching random data I always wanted to know, new stuff I just heard about, cyber browsing shoes I fantasize about purchasing for a new job that does not seem to be in my immediate future. I just surf. I am bored.

But, I am not lonely. So why, oh please WHY, am I receiving solicitation emails for "cougardating" (I am neither a cougar nor dating) and "Married but lonely, company for housewives" (I am bored, but not THAT bored). How does cyber-browsing Zappos (I LOVE Zappos!), cyber-house hunting, cyber vacation planning translate to "lonely housewife not getting any"? Those cyber-spiders and crawlers and all sorts of creepy names, have miscalculated the data associated with my email address. If it wasn't so boring, I'd think it funny.

I am bored, but also, given it is getting late into the evening, I am tired. So, I need to finally get around to my most pressing chore and finally load the dishwasher, cause the only crawlers I am willing to deal with are of the cyber variety.

One dish, One spoon

So, it’s been almost a whole year since my last post. So easiest and fastest explanation goes like this: lady problems, uterine cancer and hypothetical radical hysterectomy scare, relief of being 100% cancer free (spent weeks thanking all sorts of higher powers – God, Allah, Mohammad, Budha, Goddess, even Zeus, Thor and Jupiter and the gang got a thank you note), reality check of being high risk for cancer and new and totally pain in the butt beyond the realm of eat healthy and exercise new regime to prevent cancer, sinus infection, sinus infection, concussion, sinus infection, vacation (Bahamas, really kinda deserved that), vertigo, more doctors, four deaths in varying degree of closeness, grandfather in ICU, and pneumonia. Add onto that trying to finish an art project, which a collaborator I brought onto the project went completely crazy and spread all sorts of misinformation.

So, the last year has been a challenge, to say the least. There are many more details and lots more contextual subplot, but to discuss that would be boring for you and painful for me, so let’s leave it at, I had a really complicated year.

So moving forward. I am going to re-establish my daily writing habit. I am also writing a short story or two, a novel and have a screenplay running around my brain.

Truth is, I am still the unintentional housewife and I am going nuts not having job. Trying to get a job is a catch-22, I want one desperately, but when I manage to land an interview and I don’t get past that first interview, I get completely discouraged and contemplate housewifery forever, and then I look at the kitchen sink and realize I am not good at that either.