In defense of the mess

I'm supposed to be in Vegas right now. I'm not there, and I won't be there in the foreseeable future, and there's a long story behind all of this which is too boring for words, but the point is that I was supposed to fly out tonight and not come back until Saturday and even though that is no longer in the cards, I still have tomorrow and Friday off.

I was also supposed to be taking motorcycle lessons next weekend. See that past tense back there? That insidious 'was', which until about 2pm today was an 'am'? Reader, you are smart and logical, and I have faith that you can see where this is going.

My parents, however, are still arriving a week from Saturday to visit me for a day or two before heading up to Yosemite. So it is, in fact, very good that all my plans for the next few weekends are wrecked and I have some unforeseen time off which will be spent at home cleaning in preparation for the arrival of my parents.

I have a bit of a history with cleaning, the way my dad has a bit of a history with Rubik's cubes and Oscar has a bit of a history with Felix (although my walls are spaghetti-free for the moment. Antipathy is a learned skill).

My room was never clean growing up. It just didn't seem like a useful way to spend my time. There was enough stuff in my room that even when it was clean, it was cluttered, and it never stayed clean anyway. On one particularly memorable occasion, a neighbor complimented me on the sculptural qualities of the clothing spilling out of my bureau. Occasionally, I'd reach the pile stage, in which the surface area of the stuff on the floor exceeded the surface area of the viable walking space. At this point, Words were exchanged.

I'm sure that my mom offered up more than a few arguments in favor of keeping my room clean, but the one that I remember was, "It's impossible to walk in here!" This was an interesting one because it wasn't entirely true. It was only impossible for anyone else to walk in my room. I managed it quite well because I always knew where everything was. Even at three in the morning in the dark, I could navigate quite well among the hazards that my bedroom floor held for the unwary.

(It occurs to me now that I should clarify the difference between messy, which I am, and dirty, which I am not. Mess equals clutter, and dirt equals life forms. There is no mildew in my bathroom and my kitchen is safe to cook in, although there might be a suspect tupperware in the fridge.)

The big difference between living in my parents' house and living in my own place is that I had basically one room back home. It was a constant wreck, but I kept the door closed, and I tried to keep my clutter out of the rest of the house. But now I've been allowed to spread out. I can't just close one door to hide my homemaking flaws, because all the stuff in this apartment belongs to me. It's all my mess.

In terms of severity, it's not at the pile stage. Not event close. Just cluttered. But you know how it is when the parents visit. You want to give them some sort of reassurance that you can take care of yourself at least adequately, if perhaps not as well as they did. So I will spend some of my long weekend with a vacuum and mop as I try to resolve my cleaning initiative with the other problem of living alone:

Strange noises.

Let me just say that I don't do well with the unknown. I give irrational, baseless fears a lot more credence than they really deserve and when it comes right down to it, I am absolutely spineless, especially in the dark. Strange noises at night will have me lying wide awake in bed, terrified of what might be going on just 2 rooms away. And getting up to go check on things is absolutely out of the question because I might find something. No good. I can tell myself all I want that that creak was just the house settling, or the random tapping is the bush being blown against the window, but I don't actually know this for sure because I just don't know the place well enough. And I live on a very quiet street. There isn't any ambient noise, so I hear everything. I've found the solution is, since my rational mind knows nothing is wrong, to put another pillow over my ears so that I stop hearing things and freaking myself out. But I'm pretty sure the only reason that works is because my apartment is cluttered enough that no actual trouble could happen without me knowing about it. It's like stacking cans in front of a door as an early warning alarm system, except that my defenses are *everywhere*. You might avoid crushing a game system or getting your ankles all tangled up in the laundry I was sorting in front of the TV, but that just means you'll stub your toe on the easel or go face first into my magic cards when you miss the step in the library.

In deference to my parents, and to any other guests who might show up, I'll clean this weekend. I'll do it well. Chemicals will be involved. But you best watch your step coming in the front door, because I probably left a shoe or three scattered around as a trap for the unwary.