My girlfriend Kelly and her one-year old son Hank are coming up for a couple days’ visit. Yay and super yay! On a side topic, even if Kelly wasn’t an amazing woman and friend*, I am still so thrilled at making friends with someone who has my name (I am older than her; therefore, she has my name) I feel a childish thrill thinking about it.
But I get ahead of myself. To recap the day: not to be too graphic or anything, but my husband has been home since 1 PM today with nausea, fever, and flying bodily fluids. After laying around in bed for hours, at about 7 PM he felt a little better. I am sitting up still (at 1 AM) because A. I had to do all the household chores; B. I sewed two presents for two little birthday girls; and finally, C. I am wired from doing housework freakishly intensely all day.
Housework, housework. Housework is no longer merely drudgery but rather an art, an obsession — a passion. When I was a kid I thought there was something wrong with my parents that they could come home from work then shop for, prepare, cook, and serve a meal, and then do the dishes (about half the time; we rarely had a clean kitchen when we went to bed). I mean, I seriously could not believe they didn’t stop and say, “Wait a minute, why the fuck do I have to do all this work? I’m going downtown to get a cheesesteak and you kids can just figure your own shit out.” I guess a part of me understood they simply had to do laundry and pay bills and buy food, but I couldn’t believe they actually did so much of the other stuff without complaining about it constantly.
Of course, now I’m on the other side of the fence and do in fact not only perform more rigorous housekeeping than my parents did, I actually enjoy it – or at the very least, the end product of my efforts. Today in addition to all the normal stuff I mopped the floors while my family slept. This makes me feel proud of myself. Floor-mopping is one of those chores I love to have done but hate doing (I guess I live my life hoping for some frisky “mop elves” to come in and do it for me). When my floors are clean it is a kind of clean that really extra good (Murphy’s Oil Soap smells nice and homey and one can hope it kills relatively few brain cells).
Sometimes I want to give up on the house or to bitch and complain; I rarely do either. I like my home, knowing we have filled a house with clean children and their toys and blankets and kids’ shampoo and mended clothes and good food and clean toilets and washed floors and soft sheets. And what have you earned in your life? Don’t answer that; it would probably depress me in some small way, because it’s probably an answer like, “A new car!”, or “A dinosaur!” or something I don’t have that I really want.
As much as I know you have enjoyed this random blathering, my brother just commented on my MySpace (don’t even bother going there; I do nothing and am just there to hook up with preteens to meet at the skate park) so I am going to call him. He is my insomnia-buddy, always has been!
* reasons my friend Kelly is amazing: she pulls her shit together and can literally do anything, even with a wee babe, limited income, a sometimes surly and unhelpful partner, and all the shit life might throw at her. She is one of those women who when she says she’s going to do something, does it (my current absolute favorite thing about anyone). She is also a hostess- and company-addict who is far, far, far to social for her own good, she’s scared of nothing, she’s learning to set boundaries, and she has great boobs. (sound familiar? it’s me!)