Clean
I believe that leaving crumbs all over the countertop is a despicable act. My wife loves toast.
When I see crumbs all over the countertop, I lose the ability to think in abstractions. There is no future beyond cleaning the crumbs off the countertop. It’s damn near mystical. The crumbs call me forth to their wiping, for that is their Way, and I am just this sponge. Or some such.
My doctor recently moved me from the little orange ones to the not so little blue ones.
But then again I’m oblivious to floors. Perhaps this is a function of my tenacious optimism, always looking up. Probably not. Dreamy? Head in the clouds? Who knows? But there’s a fine line, you must admit, between a clean floor and a dirty floor. And long before I notice the line has been crossed, Jenna’s already vacuumed, swept, and mopped.
Which is of course my way of asking: Who’s to say what clean is?
Because there’s a fine line between fending off anxiety and melting like a clock in a Dali painting.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Reader Comments (27)
Clean, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
But then sometimes you just want to take something beautiful and make it dirty.
I find the crumbs my son has swept off the counter onto the floor with my usually bare feet. Then my angst moves from wait-level to toe-level. The further it is from your brain, the easier it is to ignore.
I am far from Mrs Clean, but my husbands hadicap, which makes it impossible for him to pick his Sweet 'n Low packages up off the counter and throw them into the trash, is getting on my last nerve.
I'd disagree with the first commenter. Clean is clean, dammit. And crumb? My downfall. The house could be burning down, and I'd be worried that the firefolks would have to see them.
And yet, I slack in other, less discernible ways. Bills? Stuff them away and deal with them when the collector calls.
What are those pills, again . . . ?
crumbs, i hate. other mess, not so much. walking on crumbs is worse than looking at them for me.
Rice is my nemesis. My wife is Asian so we always have rice in the house. Rice and little boys who can't keep it on their plates. Rice is much like sand. It gets everywhere.
The counters MUST be clean. The dogs can tackle the floor.
Crumbs on the counter
Often migrate to the floor
For my feet to find
Shade and Sweewtater,
K
i run a continuous loop of wiping crumbs off counters, only to vacuum up what ended up on the floor, and as long as i'm vacuuming the kitchen might as well tackle the whole downstairs, and fuck! look at the cobwebs! didn't i just get those last week? fucking spiders, i'll get you... until hours have gone by... the walls, ceilings, corners are clean... and the toddler has pulled up a chair to the counter and dumped out a box of crackers.
the little white pills are my favorite.
I live with a kitchen towel that somehow ends up waded up on the counter every day.
I'm going back on my meds tomorrow.
It bugs me THAT much.
oh my god, the fucking wadded up kitchen towel!!
i live with one of those too.
Pshaw. You amateurs and your pet peeve. Singular. As in, "My pet _peeve_ is..."
My pet peeve? The ENTIRE FUCKING HOUSE.
But as regards the other alleged "grownup" in the house? I absolutely cannot stand that he doesn't know how to make a bed. I've told him before: "You make the bed and it looks like I went down to the psych hospital, checked out a patient, and had them make the bed. You make the bed like a FRIGGIN' CRAZY PERSON.
It's gotta be love that keeps me from sending him to Bolivia. In a box.
I must have a clean sink. CLEAN. Put the damn dishes in the damn dishwasher. That's why I empty it out every morning. So the dirty dishes can go in it.
That was me up until a month ago. Now I live in a small apartment with no dishwasher. I'm washing dishes 3-4 times a day. You know what? Sometimes I let them sit now. As long as they're done before I go to bed...
But the floor that I could ignore for decades? I am sweeping it daily. I seem to have traded one obsession for another. Not sure why.
i am especially on the melty side these days.
Perhaps you are nearsighted?
We have a robot vacuum that takes care of the floors. I'd like an army of very small robot vacuums to handle the rest of my life when I'm not looking.
Not that they aren't already.
One pill makes you larger. And one pill makes you small.
Most of the crumbs remain inside the toaster. Does your have that little sliding tray to pull out or do you have the cheapo toaster that you have to turn upside down and shake?
Little purple ones have quelled my obsession with the bathroom sink.
And crying incessantly.
And sometimes, I miss both.
i've moved from yellow to tan to chartruese.( and whatever on the spelling.) it's a hell of a ride nonetheless. well, not really. and Dali's 'stache has always messed me up.
Did you know that Salvador Dali designed the Chupa Chups logo?...
Pretty cool guy except for his ideas about sex.
Clean is, as clean does. I think maybe it's not so much about searching for an objective state or accomplishment as much as it's about sublimated energy resulting from avoidance of some other state or event... Just in my experience...
I despise crumbs. And dirty plates. I keep the dishwasher in a state of readiness to receive dirty dishes, and yet, no one is capable (except me) of actually putting anything in it. I let them have the rest of the house to do with as they see fit, but the kitchen is *my* domain, and if it's not clean I get seriously pissed. Do they care? No, They do not. 3600 square feet of house, and all I ask is that I have my 200 sq feet of kitchen. Philistines.
My housemates leave wadded up kitchen towels on the stairs down to the laundry room for so long that when I finally get pissed off enough to pick them up myself, there are little mushrooms growing underneath.
I'm reminded of a quote from Dan on "Rosanne" where he said, "Remember children... we're just trying for the illusion of clean!"
I don't know where my "clean line" is, either.
I take blue ones, and really like them. I hope they work for you.
It took me years to realize that I was chasing a dragon of perfection that would never exist. It was very hard, but I then went the other way to see beauty in disorder and chaos. That is the only thing like perfection there is.
Sometimes I still get itchy when things aren't however I imagine they should be, and whenever somebody describes their own compulsion to me, but overall I'm just about okay, and ready to challenge the dragon anytime it springs back up.
However, crumbs, I am all over. It's easy and satisfying. As for wiping up some old dried spill my wife left at 5am, I just stop seeing it under and behind the clutter already on the counter. (Just speaking its name is making me twitch just a little.... moving on). I feel the same way about the floor, except my wife would not be the one to give up and sweep or vacuum it.
Every so often, we cross that line (such as when some food drops next to the cabinets where all the crumbs and such get kicked and blown from the rest of the floor), and I take care of it in the simplest, fastest way possible, and I move back on.
I was introduced to your blog today through AT - People keep asking me what I'm doing in my office with all the snorts and giggles.
I've been off the little white pill's since December since we're trying to get knocked up- which isn't going well-which is making everything slide a little to the left of center.
We both miss my meds and are looking forward to their return. The man is ocd so the crumbs are all his concern.
"Because there’s a fine line between fending off anxiety and melting like a clock in a Dali painting." - This is exactly how I've been feeling. Thanks for putting it into words.