...And on with the blog.
My mum has OCD. Obsessive cleaning disorder. She goes to work (cleaning) and comes back home, every day..to clean. I've never understood it, and I suppose I never will. Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe I simply still possess the mind of an eight year old. Eight year olds aren't concerned with dust, or ironing. They like play time and eating crayons.
I hate cleaning. In theory. Except, I don't, really. Because when I'm cleaning, I quite like cleaning. I get quite into it, cranking up Spotify all the way to eleven and aggressively hoovering my little heart of to the musical stylings of Ke$ha (don't hate).
That's not to say that I'd clap my hands with glee if I was given a brand new, shiny mop for Christmas. Quite the opposite, actually. I'd bludgeon the giver over the head with it until they blacked out. And then ask for the receipt when they come to so that I can buy a hat instead. My point is, when I convince myself that I need to climb out of the pile of clothes and tidy up, I get proper stuck in. There's something weirdly peaceful about a purely task orientated activity like that. I go into a bit of a mindless trance.
But you wouldn't think that I enjoyed it by looking at my house right now. It looks like I just turned up one day, with a sack of my belongings, placed a stick of dynamite in the middle and lit it up. Books, sweet packets and socks everywhere.
Gah! I don't know what I'm getting at with this post. I think I'm trying to understand my like/loathe relationship with any activity that's remotely domestic.
Whenever I'm in the mood to get all Mary Poppins on my own ass, I have this voice in my head that tells me I shouldn't. It tallies up whether I was the last one to do the cleaning (usually yes, but this seems to have got me out of any obligations to cook. If there's anything I find more tedious than the idea of cleaning, it's cooking), and if my tally chart's looking fatter than A's (manfriend and fellow tenant), it decides that I'm letting women down everywhere. Even though I know that my sitting around letting dust mites gather on my head won't help any Cinderellas out there at all. A lady does not fall at the hands of the patriarchy every time I decide to dust. It's neither sex's fault that dust happens... because dust doesn't have an agenda. Because dust's only job is to be dusty.
(.......Dust!)
The voice also tells me that I should be doing something more memorable, like writing that novel I keep threatening to myself that I'm going to do. Because since when has having dust free, right -angled furniture got people into the history books? There's no great recognition to be had for a tidy living room.
But then, the mess! Oh God, the mess!! I know that the logical thing for me to do would be to simply pick up after myself as I go along, but where's that sense of achievement in that?! There's more triumph to be felt in diving head first into that mountain of musty clothing and banishing them to the washing machine until you can finally recall what colour your carpet was, as opposed to just "putting that thingy in the bin" as you go. Bleh.
I guess I'll just have to accept that for as long as I have to play grown up (I.e until I can joyfully piss myself, happy in the knowledge that it's someone else's problem now), I will have to live in homes that resemble the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse for three weeks out of every month.
I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that I might have been adopted....
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