Nest

I am not a neat person. Right now our dining room table is piled with my linguistics books and articles, as well as my teaching materials. The dust bunnies are jackelope-sized, and there's probably at least 6 loads of laundry to do. These are all reasons to be unhappy as far as I'm concerned.

I watch the shows on TV where people are literally walking on crap that covers the floor and think "hey, at least I'm not that bad!" And it's true, I'm not. Those people need professional intervention, and boy do I love watching them have to give away/throw away their shit. It makes me feel pretty awesome. I'm not sure if that's schadenfreude, but it might be a close relative.

I bought a book a couple of years ago written by a woman with a cult following of people like me. She has a fantastic site, and my sister receives e-mails from it with tips on how to stay tidy (which I think must be working for her because you'd never know she has 5 kids when you visit her house--I'd definitely eat off the floor there). I admit the clean guru's style isn't really my bag, baby, but I think underneath it all she has a point. I try to follow her advice, but I get the sense I'm resistant to help. Am I self-sabotaging my abilities to have a clean house?

Keeping the house clean is the silent but ongoing battle between me and Mortgage Partner. If I'm messy, he's a downright slob. He calls it Pigpen-ism. Seriously, if you know the guy, you'll know this to be true. Our so-called master bedroom is currently the source of my disgust with our house. I don't even like sleeping in there. (See, I sound like the people on those shows.)

Every so often we'll force ourselves to clean it (we call it triage around here), and it'll look good on the surface. However, there's still the matter that I haven't finished painting it yet. And I want to remove the carpet. And the adjoining sunporch needs a total renovation. Ugh.

So, lest you think my (our) messiness is the source of the aforementioned mice, we're not dirty (although dust bunnies are in a gray area in that respect). We just seem to find other (better?) ways to spend our time than tidying the house. You know, like blogging.

Die Fledermaus

Ok, so Die Fledermaus is really an opera by Johann Strauss about a bat, well, it's not really about a bat, but that's how it translates. In any case, it literally means "flying mouse," which I suppose is another way of looking at a bat. This is all really just a preamble to the actual news of the day, which is that mice really do fly.

Let me just back up a few years to 2004. I was still horribly poor, post grad school, working for the man, but not actually making real money. I lived in 3rd-floor walkup brownstone, which was oozing with potential, except in reality it was a craphole. Over the first few months of the year, I had been besieged by mice. Apparently Owl Man, my reclusive, nocturnal neighbor below me, kept birds and thus had quite a lot of bird seed, which had attracted mice. The mice were well known to me, as I heard them scrabbling in the walls and causing my cat, Lena, to sit and stare at the wall for hours. But for the most part, I hadn't really had to deal with them. Then came the month of many mice. I can't remember the time line precisely any more, but I think over the course of several weeks, Lena presented me with about 8 mice. Sometimes whole, sometimes in parts. Sometimes dead, but usually alive. One day I was talking to my mom on the phone, (and I may actually have been aware with Lena playing with a mouse but was so desensitized at that point I decided to ignore it), and I saw the mouse go flying through the air. It probably flew about 5 feet. It landed on a dining room chair and kept running. I call that mouse The One That Got Away.

Fastforward to two days ago. I came home from school and saw all the usual signs--cats transfixed by something that no human can see or hear. This time, it was Lena and Oliver staring at the space below our Craftsman bench (no, not the kind you buy at Sears). Thank God Brave Mortgage Partner came home before they actually made contact. We were able to rescue that one. Sort of. It wasn't so bad.

Yesterday, suffice it to say, I spent some quality time standing on a footstool hovering with a metal colander in my hands and screaming. That mouse spent the day under the colander, which was weighted down by my 18th century art history book, which was covered by a tub, which was weighted down by my big f*cking art history book. Then there was the mouse who got to play with the kitties while I hid upstairs; he eventually ended up rolled in the living room rug.

So I called the exterminator. I just couldn't take it anymore. I hope Jesus forgives me for killing the little creatures. My druthers would be that the meeces would go live in our shed in the backyard. But they seem to like our house better.

My cats are good mousers, but that doesn't actually mean they kill them and dispose of them properly. They're well fed. Oliver weighs 16 pounds for pete's sake. He could go a week without eating. He just lays there with a giant paw holding down a teeny mouse. Awful.

As of this morning, we've been mouse-free since yesterday afternoon. Mortgage Partner always says nature ain't no Disney movie. If it were, I'm sure I'd have a coach and six white horses by now. Bibbideebobbideef*ckingboo!

Optimal Relevance

So, I'm going to steal some words from my linguistics book, but I'm going to use them in a completely irrelevant way. Cause that's what I do.

The fine sisters over at She Doesn't Get It have a forum on, well, lots of things. Mostly about being childful and childless, which seems to be my reality these days also. Everyone I know (and their little dogs too) seems to be having babies these days. Kinda like in years past when I everyone I knew was getting married. I guess these things usually work this way. I have to admit I feel a certain twinge in my ovaries at the thought of zee leetle bebe, because I think that's part of being 30-something.

Society (whatever that is) does seem to judge people on whether they're married and having kids, and so I totally relate to the singletons who bemoan their friends' inability to discuss anything other than their marriage or their kids. At the same time, I understand the marrieds-with-kids desire to discuss their reality, which is to say being married and having kids.

Yes, there are perhaps bigger things in the world to worry about--you know, global warming and world peace, etc. I do think these bigger concerns are implicit in people's discussions about themselves; it's just not always as apparent. I read an article the other day that suggested one way to minimize global warming was for people to procreate less. Well, I can see that as a reasonable argument. I'm also one of those people who believes that raising responsible kids is another way to contribute positively to the world. That said, I know that's just me putting on my rose-tinted glasses because there are plenty of loopholes in that argument.

I don't think the argument for/against kids is one we can empirically hash out. We are, after all, people who can't entirely be ordered by reason. Mortgage partner says he can't come up with a good reason for wanting the new car he slobbers over (which he isn't getting--I get the next new car). It's much more concrete to defend the argument for/against marriage--that's a contract with potential financial pros/cons, in addition to the obvious emotional ones.

Me, I'm on the fence about kids, admittedly with one leg dangling further over on one side than the other. And while I'm not even going to TRY to equate having kids with the choice to buy a new car (I'm not that shallow, people), there is a certain parallel between the wants (unless you happen to be driving a complete piece of shit in which case the need certainly overrides the want). We don't need kids to perform manual labor like in ye olde days of yore; we can shop at Wal-f*ck instead. We also don't need them to prove the viability of the marriage contract (unless you're Michael Jackson, but that's another blog for another day).

Perhaps because I'm a poet, I equate having children with the urge to create something beautiful that can one day stand on its own--much like a poem, a painting, or whatever it is that one creates for art's sake. We want things because they can contribute to happiness (Note: I did not say they will make you happy). They please us. And unlike those things we love because they're aesthetically pleasing, children love us back.

Ode to Dorothy

Ok, so I just had to post a blog about my friend Dorothy over at Surrender, Dorothy, who has (gasp!) snapped up a book deal. I'm so proud of her and so thankful that she said I can be more angstful in my own blog posts. She writes about being a mommy and has put a collection together of mommybloggers. While I'm a nonmommy (in terms of human children at least--we have oodles of the furry kind), I find that I relate more to Dorothy than to other bloggers who might be termed as "my kind." You know, us unmarried, childless, career-driven folks.

Oh yeah, and since I titled this an ode, I guess I better throw some ode-like lines in here so I won't be deemed full of empty promises.

Ode to Dorothy (with apologies to Keats)

Woman of wit and thoughtful childfulness,

Close bosom-friend of fine literature;

Conspiring with mommies how to raise and dress

The young child who grows to resemble her.

Ok, so this is really only a small part of an ode, but I couldn't come up with 33 lines (which is also apropos for Dorothy) in such haste. Maybe another day.

All the best, Dorothy! I'm so thrilled for you and that I can say I knew you back before you were famous.

Procrastination Epistemology

There are at least three things I should be doing right now: 1) Working 2) Reading 3) Writing.

I wish I could consider blogging as falling under the writing category, but that would just be wishful thinking. Maybe writing would better be restated as "homework."

Since I have a lot of each to do, I have decided not to do any of them. I shall, instead, ruminate. Today's ruminations (and yes, I'm chewing as I write this), will consist of my thoughts on Descartes, anomalies of English, and what I should cook for dinner.

First, about Descartes. He came up a lot in my class with Brainy Linguistics Professor today. So I thought I'd dig out my copy of Discourse on Method circa 1995 (complete with my inane comments in the margins). As Descartes ponderously describes what will become known as Cartesianism, my comments note he is "not much of a risk-taker." Ok, so I was a little shallow, but I think it would be fun to evaluate philosophers on what their philosophies seem to say about their personalities. You know, that Rousseau, "he's a bit of an ass," or that Mill, "he sure does like his freedom," and that kind of thing.

The next topic comes courtesy of e-e baby, who asked me to consider the phrase (or if you really want to be linguistic about it, utterance) "a whole nother." I see her point. I mean, really, if you have another, you should be able to have any number of nothers you want, especially a whole nother or maybe even a half-nother. As in, that's a half-nother thing altogether. Because it's really not fair to say it's another thing (that would imply it's something else), and it's especially unfair to say it's a whole other thing (because that would directly place it in the realm of things not even related to what you're talking about). But, if we could have half-nothers, well, then you could give credit to something while simultaneously detracting from it.

As for the last topic, nobody really cares about what Dear Mortgage Partner and I are having for dinner. I do, however, have an idea about how to begin my homework.