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.