House vs puzzle
The past two weeks have been dominated by my relationship with my house. Room by room, I slowly clear away clutter so somebody else can clean. It's like psychoanalysis for me, as every grudging step requires negotiation with my house-neurosis.
I resent the house with all its 1970's suburban tract deficiencies. I resent the mortgage. Selling it will be one of the happiest moments of my life. I do only the least possible cleaning required for sanitation, and sometimes less. I gave up the struggle of yardwork long ago. The endless battle with bermuda and scorching heat is futile and enraging. The consequences of my sloth rarely intrude on my peripheral vision, so I don't care. Now, suddenly, I have to see my house through the eyes of others. "Mom" is my realtor.
Paradoxically, the more clutter I clear, the better I feel. I can find things. The mounds on my desks are tossed or filed. My closets are cleared of all the clothes I rushed out and bought when I lost 35 pounds three years ago then gained it back a year and a half later. Lovely clothes, now available at the nearest Goodwill store. The foot-deep layer of clothes and books and magazines and occasional plates and forks is gone from atop my kingsize bed. And so on. Still, each room requires a period of building up the will to tackle it.
Only one room is left, my yoga room. The floor is half covered with all the junk I had to move out of my office so the tilers and painters could move the desks around. This was in summer 2006. The junk is so diverse and hard to classify that I'm repelled by it. Everything that came with every bit of electronic whatever I've ever bought. Pathetic plastic things bought to help me organize my desktops. Several shelf-feet of "Great Courses" audiotapes. Art prints bought on trips and never hung. And so on.
Clearing the dining room table of dust, photos, clothes hangers, old bills, plastic bags (one full of Cialis packets), and old plumbing gave me the opportunity to spread out my cherished 3,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a geological map of France. I bought it years ago at the natural history museum in Paris. Time flies leaning over it into the wee hours of morning. I'm loving it.
One more room. Today? Tomorrow? I'm thinking about it. Meanwhile, there's a puzzle pulling me and a painter's color wheel from which I must choose a safe, neutral color to hide my tangerine bathroom walls and several shades of gray to make the wood and block exterior shout "buy me!"
I need to plant flowers.
I resent the house with all its 1970's suburban tract deficiencies. I resent the mortgage. Selling it will be one of the happiest moments of my life. I do only the least possible cleaning required for sanitation, and sometimes less. I gave up the struggle of yardwork long ago. The endless battle with bermuda and scorching heat is futile and enraging. The consequences of my sloth rarely intrude on my peripheral vision, so I don't care. Now, suddenly, I have to see my house through the eyes of others. "Mom" is my realtor.
Paradoxically, the more clutter I clear, the better I feel. I can find things. The mounds on my desks are tossed or filed. My closets are cleared of all the clothes I rushed out and bought when I lost 35 pounds three years ago then gained it back a year and a half later. Lovely clothes, now available at the nearest Goodwill store. The foot-deep layer of clothes and books and magazines and occasional plates and forks is gone from atop my kingsize bed. And so on. Still, each room requires a period of building up the will to tackle it.
Only one room is left, my yoga room. The floor is half covered with all the junk I had to move out of my office so the tilers and painters could move the desks around. This was in summer 2006. The junk is so diverse and hard to classify that I'm repelled by it. Everything that came with every bit of electronic whatever I've ever bought. Pathetic plastic things bought to help me organize my desktops. Several shelf-feet of "Great Courses" audiotapes. Art prints bought on trips and never hung. And so on.
Clearing the dining room table of dust, photos, clothes hangers, old bills, plastic bags (one full of Cialis packets), and old plumbing gave me the opportunity to spread out my cherished 3,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a geological map of France. I bought it years ago at the natural history museum in Paris. Time flies leaning over it into the wee hours of morning. I'm loving it.
One more room. Today? Tomorrow? I'm thinking about it. Meanwhile, there's a puzzle pulling me and a painter's color wheel from which I must choose a safe, neutral color to hide my tangerine bathroom walls and several shades of gray to make the wood and block exterior shout "buy me!"
I need to plant flowers.
posted by Cranky Ol' Lady at 2:19 PM
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