Cleanliness

[cosmolinguist]

Back when Andrew was telling me "I'll have a spare room because my cousin's moving out, and come on, you know you want to live here", I asked him what his cousin thought of him getting a girl from America to come live with him. Andrew told me his cousin thought it was a good idea, because the place might be cleaner if there was a girl around.

I laughed and said I'm not that kind of girl. I had years of experience to back this up: mllesarah and I called part of our freshman dorm room The Pit of Despair (the whole thing together was called Entropy Yard, after she told me her dad calls their farm Entropy Acres; we changed the scale of measurement accordingly). greenflower, my sophomore roommate, and I didn't wash our dishes until everything we had was atrociously dirty; we ate cereal out of measuring cups. And I'm not even going to talk about living with evil_grapefrult.

But beyond all of that, there's also the fact that my formative years were spent with an obsessive, perfectionist, anal-retentive woman, affectionately known as Mom, who vacuums, dusts, and scrubs practically everything in the house every week ... on the same day every week. I could never live up to that! Worst of all, she's one of those people who apologizes about how messy her house is, "it's lived in"—obvious proof that she's lost all ability to reasonably assess the situation.

I myself have a lot of apathy about cleaning, as well as (sometimes) an actual inability to see the offensive dirt. So I thought that if Andrew's cousin was expecting a girl who'd make a fuss about the house being messy, I would be a disappointment.

But then weird things happened.

First, Andrew's cousin got us a cleaning lady. Once a week she'll do the living room and kitchen for us. We feel bad about this—servitude isn't really our thing—but it wasn't our idea and so we're just nice to hear and certainly appreciative of her work. This does mean, though, that we're lax about these things the rest of the time: the dishes don't get done the rest of the week, things get left lying around, you know. That's okay, except sometimes there's this second thing.

The second thing: I think my female-ness is kicking in; I'm starting to think more like girls stereotypically do when faced with a stereotypical bachelor. It's weird! I find myself thinking how much easier it would be to find things in Andrew's room if the floor weren't completely covered by clothes he doesn't wear (even clothes he does wear, as there's nowhere else to put them), garbage, old cassettes he didn't think he had any more, books, and stuff like that. I find myself thinking it'd be nicer if the stacks of DVDs lying around were actually in their cases so we could find them and so they didn't get any more scratched than they are. Of course he'd laugh if I mentioned such things, so I don't. And then there's the third thing.

The third thing: Andrew saw me doing the dishes once and told me not to; he said I shouldn't do things like that because he doesn't want me to act like his servant. A nice enough sentiment, but he's militant about this. If he sees me pick up a wrapper of something, he tells me I shouldn't. If I just throw all his clothes and things around his room because I'm looking for something of mine, and when I'm done you can see part of the floor, he complains that I'm tidying and I shouldn't be. He says he'll do it, I should ask him. Now, the way I see it, gender is irrelevant here and making him do everything is no better than me doing everything. Besides, I never did everything anyway. I'm still pretty apathetic. But I don't like not having any clean dishes, so if I wash a couple, that's no big deal to me. It is to him, though. I told him today he's the oddest combination of a feminist and a chauvinist I've ever met.

As a result I'm trapped into not being able to clean anything ... except when he's asleep. Mwa ha ha! This morning I wiped down the sink and the inside of the microwave! But then I got tomato sauce all over the nice clean sink right away, so I'm properly filthy as well.

Comments

[hephaestos.livejournal.com]

The second thing is that I think my female-ness is kicking in; I'm starting to think more like girls stereotypically do when faced with a stereotypical bachelor.

My best advice is to start singing songs from My Fair Lady. ;)

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

I laughed and said I'm not that kind of girl.

What a difference a generation makes. WHen our parents said this it had an entirely different meaning. LOL!

Hello? What's wrong w/ you? Enjoy your inability to clean! Damn, I wish that was a problem here! Unfortunately, I have to do the cleaning, or it won't get done by ANYONE! I would love to hire a person to come in once a week & do everything, but my husband refuses to pay for it, even though we have GARDENERS who handle what is supposed to be HIS job in the yard! When I get a job and bring money into the house, THEN we can have a housekeeper.

Can you tell I live with a stereotypical Spaniard?

Enjoy not having to clean. Revel in it. Don't do it.

[cosmolinguist]

WHen our parents said this it had an entirely different meaning.

Yeah, I know, that's why I had to use that phrase. :-)

And I figured someone would tell me to enjoy not having to clean. It's like the friends who were jealous (if incredulous) when I told them that my mom used to clean my room. They had little sympathy for my horror stories of how horrible this was, as I couldn't find anything and, really, never really got things the way I liked them in the first place; our bedrooms were (and still are, mine more than my brother's) more like museums of our knickknacks ... with all my books and music, the good stuff, hidden somewhere. But I whined about that and I'll whine about this: it's not that I miss cleaning, it's that I'm annoyed that I couldn't do something if I wanted to. I know it sounds dumb, but that's the way I am.

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

It doesn't sound 'dumb', it's just puzzling. Maybe if you HAD to pick up after other people you'd feel differently. maybe not.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm sure I would feel differently if I'd always had to pick up after people (I've done that, to some degree, in college and didn't like that). I always hate doing things I have to do. :-) So maybe he's actually found the best way to get me to help clean the house, by getting me to do it to spite him. Ooo, reverse psychology!

[cosmolinguist]

But really, I think it's that I like to feel responsible for myself. Cleaning up one's own messes is a highly underrated thing these days ... and, as you say, it would save a lot of frustration and irritation directed towards your otherwise-loved ones.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

It's weird! I find myself thinking how much easier it would be to find things in Andrew's room if the floor weren't completely covered by clothes he doesn't wear (even clothes he does wear, as there's nowhere else to put them)

Mock ye not the floordrobe!

[commonswings.livejournal.com]

i am not a tidy person. i am cluttered and disorganised and messy. i am also incredibly anal about things like cds and dvds in boxes and get rather stressed by these things if they're not. sarah's house is the most chaotic abode you have ever seen and pretty much every three days i had a full blown panic attack thing about the sheer mess and couldn't cope until she'd calmed me down. so i am in the unfortunate position of being the tidy one in this relationship... sigh. not going to end happily THAT one

[cosmolinguist]

I'm sort of like that, too, and I'm not used to being the tidy one. It's odd.

[commonswings.livejournal.com]

well considering sarah didn't realise that i'm allergic to the dust you CAN'T physically see as well as those you can see it's going to be an interesting one! wish us luck!

[sporksoma.livejournal.com]

You need to explain to him that this is part of your natural instincts as a female taking care of her male. Although nobody LIKES cleaning, when a woman is cleaning up after her man or children it gives her a sort of satisfaction.

And then kick him. =)

I think I might have to go straight to kicking him :-)

[cosmolinguist]

It's not even just because I'm a female and he's male so much as I like feeling like I'm helping to take care of somebody I care about ... two people I care about if you count him as well as me. ;-)

Re: I think I might have to go straight to kicking him :-)

[sporksoma.livejournal.com]

Andrew doesn't understand a lot of stuff about natural instincts. That's because he has neither studied them, nor been in such a relationship as he is in right now.

You can tell him that you're going to straighten things up a little bit whether he likes it or not, because you want to, because you're living there and you're tired of living in the pigsty (I use this with Damon constantly) and he can bugger off.

Just be firm and loving.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I know, it's okay. I didn't mean to imply this is a huge problem for me anyway. And even if it were, if this is the worst I have to complain about, I think I'm doing pretty well. :-)

[sporksoma.livejournal.com]

But you must learn how to control him. That is the secret of being like, stuff and stuff and blah. =)

You're doing pretty well anyway =) He digs you.

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

when a woman is cleaning up after her man or children it gives her a sort of satisfaction.

Is this in a textbook somewhere, because I can name 25 women right off the top of my head who would respectfully disagree with you, myself included. LOL!

[sporksoma.livejournal.com]

If you saw my house you would understand exactly how much I LOATHE cleaning.

However, there is something, deep inside, that makes you feel like "Huh. I'm taking care of my family."

Its part of the female natural instinct, the stuff that is buried way down in our primalness. And stuff.

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

Maybe for you, but not for me, and not for my friends & acquaintances.

All I ever think about when picking up after the husband and kid are, "God DAMNIT, why can't they remember to pick up their own shit? Who am I, the fucking MAID?"

Then, I lay eyes on them, and storm upstairs to my room, slam the door, and lock it so I don't have to look at them.

No satisfaction here.

[cosmolinguist]

The attitudes people have towards this sort of thing are interesting. Maybe people have fought against the idea that cleaning, cooking, etc. is "women's work," and I know that part of the reason Andrew and I clash over this is that he doesn't want to be seen as someone who views such a division of labor for the genders; it so often isn't fair. I understand that, and I agree, but I don't think the other extreme is any better. I don't think Andrew should do the dishes all the time because (as he says) I'm more important than he is--especially since I do not think I am, in fact, more important than he is.

But mostly, I don't want it to be a big psychological monster. I do actually like to cook, and I even like cleaning on occasion, and I'm not particularly bothered by whether or not these are traditionally accepted roles for women. Defying such ideas just for the sake of defying them can end up binding you to those very ideas as surely as submitting to them would.

I'm not making sense any more. :-) I'll stop now.

[sporksoma.livejournal.com]

Yep. I don't think that cooking and cleaning is just "women's work." Just like I don't think working and, uh, taking out the trash is a "man's job" or whatever. Andrew's seen our house and he knows how totally trashed it was when he visited last time, so that right there is proof that neither Damon nor myself are domestic deities when it comes to cleaning.

However, a cleaner space tends to make people a little bit happier. Andrew needs to stop being so grumpy and share the chores; sharing is much more fun than just one person doing everything. And that's the way it goes! or something. =)

[cosmolinguist]

Well said. :-)