Friday, September 26, 2008

Confession

Tim and I are not neat people. It's not that we wouldn't like to be. We have high aspirations. But we have a LOT of stuff, a lot of music, a lot of mail... just basically a lot of shit lying around all over the place that we're not very diligent about straightening/putting away/sifting through. Oh, and doing dishes is an issue too. And when there's so much stuff around, it's harder to clean.

But basically... we're slobs. It pains me to admit it, but it's true. (I'm an uncurable perfectionist, so when I can't do *everything,* I do nothing. Brilliant.)

Since wedding stuff started piling up around and on top of our wood stove (lately, at an exponential rate), we've been a little apprehensive about having people over. I mean, it's basically a freakin' sty. I'll admit it. We get sad about it and flip out that it's a disaster, clean halfheartedly, and ultimately let it get to the exact same condition it was in before.

Balinese and Ghanaian drums not included in wedding paraphernalia. 
By the way, the sculpture on the upper left is by our ketubah artist, Paul!

However. The night before the wedding, we're having a welcome party at our house. I don't know what I was smoking when I had that idea, but we (+ my mom) took it and ran with it. It's all right - it'll be fun. And now we have motivation to get things in better shape before my mom arrives on the 20th. I'm thinking we'll splurge on a cleaning service that week, but first we have to get all our crap put away so they can actually clean. (I wonder how much it would cost to get someone to do the putting away part, too...) I took TWO carloads of stuff to a consignment store and the Salvation Army a couple weeks ago - that was some good progress. And I've been slowly attacking the mail that piles up when I'm out of town and I then forget to go through. (Oops.)

So it's been slowly improving with my little surges of energy. Then today I decided that we should have our friends Chris & Sadie over to watch the debate (IF it happens... don't get me started) and have dinner.

Thus, we started cleaning.

And then...

I discovered my new best friend.



Vacuuming soothes me. I love it. Unfortunately, Tim and I have never had a decent vacuum, so I had been using a crappy electric broom that's a sad excuse for an appliance. When I was growing up, though, it was the one chore I didn't have to be forced to do. 

A couple weeks ago, I got a notice from Amazon that our vacuum cleaner had been purchased off our registry. I was PUMPED, but also perplexed - I mean, I also registered for a backyard composter and have been mercilessly made fun of for it, so why is something equally mundane OK? I went to the registry and discovered that it had been purchased by Kit, my dad's college and law school friend/roommate. I cracked up.

When my parents were dating long-distance (Boston-LA), my mom used to visit Kit and my dad's apartment and be totally horrified by the bachelor-pad nastiness of it. She would take the broom and start sweeping, but my dad was infuriated because sweeping was Kit's chore, and he didn't want her to do it. I don't know. It's convoluted and weird, and a little confusing that my dad would get mad at my *mom* for that, but whatever. Anyway, the story has evolved to some version of Kit coming home to my parents' trying to wrestle the broom away from each other. His note to Tim and me read, "May you never have to fight over the broom."

Seriously, I kind of went nuts with the vacuum. For almost an hour. Only downstairs. But I bet my allergies will improve now.

Anyone else have something they want to air? Please? (By the way, it is taking ever fiber of my being not to make SO many vacuum-related puns right now. But I guess I'm on a self-improvement kick.)

p.s. T minus one month!!!

3 comments:

Cate Subrosa said...

Aw, such a cute post. It's the little things in life, eh? I'm messy too. But luckily Baddie is neat ;)

Bad Kid Productions said...

We're clutter messy, not dirty messy - but its still no good. Need. more. storage. space!

Matt Katz said...

When you get married you just CONSUME stuff. It's unreal. A good time to clean-house...