Hey. Come over to my house right now. No, really. My house is soooooooooo clean, and I need you all to come over right this second and just look at it for me. Validation, please!
As is required by law, I am cleaning my place intensively immediately preceding my mom’s visit in about 48 hours. I’ve done the normal stuff like vacuum and sweep and tidy up, but I have also cleaned out the closets, rearranged the cupboards, scoured the bathtub and the surrounding bathroom, including behind the toilet, taken out like fifteen bags full of garbage and recycling of various types, reorganized what passes for my linen closet, and dusted the bookshelves. I got rid of a bunch of grad school stuff, like a lot of my article readers, but have kept some of my paper purely for hilarity’s sake. There have been no mishaps thus far, unless you count turning the shower on as I was trying to scrub the bathtub, which I don’t, because it always happens to me every time I do clean it. All I have to do now is clean out the other closet and clear off the junk table, and make a run to Value Village, and I think it will be acceptable. Mom isn’t really one of those moms who immediately starts cleaning her daughters’ houses when she visits, but she did buy me a vacuum cleaner last time she came to visit. I think it was a hint.
Part of the reason I got into this is that I just finished a book called Biting The Dust: The Joys of Housework, whose author’s name unfortunately escapes me. It’s not a very sweeping history, as it only deals with Canada, the States, and England in the last hundred and fifty years or so, but it’s very interesting. When the author was interviewing people for the book, she said that at first no one wanted to talk about housework, but once they got started, people became really passionate about the subject. Of course, I had to put it down in the middle of reading it yesterday because I became very aware of my own filth. Maybe that’s a good thing.
So that’s it. That’s all I have to tell you, that my house is clean and you should come see it because it’s such a rarity. I’m thinking a lot about domestic stuff right now, housing, cooking, that sort of thing, and so it’s been satisfying to get cleaned up and get rid of stuff and arrange things all pretty. I’m hoping this new job will represent a new chapter in my life, and it’s always nice to start a chapter with a clean slate.