My sister is flying in tomorrow for business. She thought it might be hang out over the weekend, so she extended her flight, canceled her hotel, and is staying with me. I’ll see her tomorrow night after work and then my haircut. There’s a good chance she’ll get to the condo before me.
This means I had to clean tonight. Now, if she wasn’t going to be here this weekend I can guarantee that I would not done any cleaning even by Sunday. I do laundry every other day or so. Same with dishes. Lately I’ve been getting into a habit of taking my clean clothes from the dryer into my bedroom and then throwing them about the loveseat. I currently have two loads there now.
While I would never leave a dish in the sink, I will leave my clean dishes in the washer and use it as a cupboard when I next eat. I need to find a new maid, as the last one made off with a bunch of my stuff. I wish I could say that I’d spend an hour every weekend cleaning – but it’s like the gym that’s two blocks away. I’m probably just not going to do it.
It’s a strange thing, because I’m not lazy. Here it is, 12pm, and I’m writing even though I’d rather be in bed dreaming about long legged stewardesses.
Funny that stewardesses used to be an incredibly sexy male fantasy, and now the thought of making love to a JetBlue flight attendant makes your stomach turn. I love the feeling of their fannies as they brush against my shoulder when they walk the aisle. I hope you understand “love” was sarcastic. It’s nasty.
I bike everyday to work, which is a lot of calories burned. I’ll go the whole work day without getting up from my chair, and even forgetting to eat. I’m not lazy.
But, for some reason, unless there’s accountability I don’t seem to keep my place clean.
Yet, I do feel better when it is cleaned.
Same thing with the gym. The science is in – lifting a few weights and hitting the treadmill is a good idea. But I’m not regularly going. But, if I had a workout buddy and we had an appointment to meet there at 7pm, I would make it.
If I did just ten minutes of cleaning a day, my place would be dust-free.
The problem is that I expect perfection. It’s not enough that I work hard, or that I bike twenty miles. My place is still a mess, which means that I’m still a mess. I look for what isn’t good enough. And then I do the, “Why don’t you take care of yourself better?”
I forget that I eat an insanely healthy breakfast. And that I take my vitamins and bring my lunch to work. I hit the therapist and go to my support groups. That I spend an hour on the blog each night and play with my animals.
The thought that I may actually be doing okay despite the apartment being a six on the clean scale does not naturally occur to me.
I am glad my sister is coming in, if for no other reason that it got me to put a bunch of crap away that’s been sitting on the counter.
So, maybe I’ll start hosting “Dinners With Paris” where I’ll invite you in make you something nice to eat. You’ll hang out, tell me how great I am, and consume heroic amounts of Schnapps that my ex-wife left behind. I never saw her drink anything other than wine, but there are fourteen bottles of flavored alcohol, some of which have started to turn back into grain.
Accountability – it’s important. My goal on Monday was not to be critical of my girlfriend. So far, so good. Her breath could use some improving though. It’s awful.
Note – her breath has never been anything other than perfect. She still won’t appreciate that joke.
photo credit: Melissa Ann Barrett via photo pin cc