Unclean

Yesterday, at around 11:30 AM, I experienced a moment of complete and utter self-revulsion. It was prompted by the State of My Floors. The hardwoods on the first floor of my house are a bit scratched and worn; that is not the problem. The problem starts with the good half-inch of dog hair with which they are constantly padded, and continues to the formerly fluffy area rugs that dot their surface -- once a bargaining tool for the home's former owners ("we'll leave you these pretty things if you let us slide on the poisonous radon...") they're now matted and stained with a year's worth of apple juice and pug dribbles.

How often do you all clean your floors? Because we just can't seem to be bothered with it. I could count on my fingers how often I've mopped since we moved in. And the vacuum... ohhhhh, the vacuum. See, it's just so heavy, and I have to drag it all the way up the stairs to do the second-floor carpet, and then I have to empty the damn cartridge, and that is why there is a dead moth carcass resting next to my foot right now as I type. I wish I were kidding.

I am the queen of picking up. I also excel at bringing order. I firmly believe that it is because of these two things that I am able to get away with being So Damn Filthy. I believe I have written about this here before, about how I basically change my sheets with the seasons and use the same hand towel until it becomes so stiff that it actually walks itself to the washing machine. It would be one thing if I were out-of-my-gourd busy and just didn't have time to worry about things like, you know, dust and mildew. But yesterday I found plenty of time to read a book for two hours, dick around on Facebook while listening to Car Talk, and play cards with my friends. Yes, I've got some work, and yes I'm raising my kid, but... I'm not that busy.

This morning I was taking a shower and noticed for the first time how disgusting our shower curtain had become. Its filth stood out, given that I had scrubbed the tub and tiles the day before, prompted by the aforementioned fit of self-revulsion. The liner was yellowed and dirty and the curtain itself had a long faded stain running its length, marking the spot where it rubbed against the tub. Clearly this was not an overnight thing; it must have been like this for awhile, and I had not even noticed. Not even a bit.

The thing is: I am not remotely interested in having a pristine home. Any house I live in will probably always boast mismatched furniture and stacks of half-read library books, will always invite people to describe it as looking "lived-in." I'm cool with that. But man. You can't, like, opt out of basic home hygiene. Unless you want mice and earwigs. Which I don't. If I lived with someone who gave two shits about cleanliness, it would help. As it is, my husband could assemble an entire week's wardrobe, including socks and undergarments, from the articles of clothing he has left strewn, crumbled, and/or stuffed in random locations throughout the house. He would describe this as absentminded habit. I would describe it as another reason I'm not disinfecting those countertops.

There are just so many things I'd rather do than clean. Plus, I'm not good at it. I get bored and abandon tasks half-finished. When Cletus gets old enough to do chores, she's going to realize that whatever she's scrubbing is the only clean thing in the house. We'll pass along our lack of household skills to her! She'll go to college with one set of linens to her name! Her freshman roommate, like mine, will have to leave notes reading "Empty me!" on their dorm room's overflowing trash can!

Or I could just hire a cleaning person twice a month and turn the shower of self-loathing into a veritable swim.

Beat it

It does not bode well for my future sanity that I have already reached my Michael Jackson saturation point on this, the sixth day after his death.

Oh man. I am having one of those days. Cletus the Former Fetus woke up this morning and refused to put weight on her left foot, saying it was "ouchy." I checked it for swelling and discoloration, wiggled it around to see if it was tender or stiff, couldn't find a thing wrong with it. Still, she took a step and winced and stumbled.

I called my mom, who told me to check for bug bites. She also told me that my brother's CAT scan had gone fine on Tuesday, but that his surgeon wouldn't let him return to work until August, and that they still hadn't been able to get him an appointment at the fancy specialty clinic for the disease they think he might have, and that Daniel was depressed and scared that he might lose his job. And then she started crying.

I checked the bottom of Cletus' foot and found two faint pink circles where some creature apparently feasted. I took her in to see the doctor. Cletus' doc gave her a quick exam, glanced at her foot for about.006 seconds, and diagnosed with authority: "She's limping." I was all "Yeah, so, I thought we'd covered that when I walked in the door and called your attention to her limp, but... thanks!" And he was all, "Yes, and those are bug bites. Would you like some lotion for them?" And I was all, "Yes, some lotion and proof of your malpractice insurance, which you will need when these bug bites infect my child's bloodstream."

[The only up side to the appointment was the knowledge that I wouldn't have to pay for it, since we've already maxed out our deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for the year. And it's only July! Wheeee! For the rest of the year, we are living like Canadians!]

And then I took Cletus to daycare (where, upon seeing her friends playing baseball outside, she experienced a sudden and miraculous recovery) and went home to write. Except I didn't write. I puttered around and did laundry and worked my volunteer shift at the resale shop. And now I feel that big blah empty feeling you get when you spend your day accomplishing not a damn thing.

I'm gonna go get my kid now.

Rejection, real and imagined

It's official: Cletus the Former Fetus has imaginary acquaintances. I'm not sure that I can call them imaginary friends, as they seem to not always be super nice. A few days ago, Cletus ran up to me with a concerned look on her face, her half-eaten snack dangling from an outstretched hand. "Mama, they said no!" she cried.

"Who said no?" I asked, looking around the room. I had briefly been in the bathroom; maybe one of our friends had come by in the meantime and let themselves in through the back door, as we tend to do out here in The Sticks.

"The Dora friends said no!" she said, pointing back over her shoulder at her playroom. "They said I couldn't eat my snack!"

I followed her back into the playroom, asking "Who are the Dora friends?". I thought maybe she had been playing with her Dora and Diego dolls, or her Dora-themed Memory game, or her ridiculous purse that is designed to look like a giant head-of-Dora. But she had not; the room was devoid of any evidence of Dora-related play.

Cletus continued to stare at her snack, hesitant. I told her she could tell the Dora friends that her mama gave her the green-light on the fruit roll-up. Cletus smiled and announced into the air: "My mama said YES!" And then she took a bite. Apparently the Dora friends, mysterious bullies though they be, still cleave to my authority.

Aren't, like, actual kids mean enough, with their pushing and their toy-stealing and their name-calling? It seems really unjust that my child's fake playmates are trying to keep her down as well.

I think the Dora friends' repressive regime must be somehow related to Cletus' current obsession with being told "no". These days, whenever the husband or I tell her she can't do something, or ask her to stop french-kissing the dog, or refuse to let her eat a bowl of juice for dinner, she squints her eyes and puckers up her mouth and wails, "You said NO to meeeeeeeeeeee!" On particularly choice occasions, when only one parent plays the role of the offender while the other has the misfortune of simply being in the same room, Cletus turns to the onlooker and cries, "Daaaaaaddy, Mommy said NO to meeeeeeeee!"

We're in a real limit-pushing phase right now, so Cletus is hearing us say "no" a lot. Which results in a near-constant transition from plaintive ass-kissing (batting her eyelashes and rubbing my arm while cooing "Mama, can I watch a little bit of TV?") to tortured whining (resting her forehead on the floor while sobbing "But I WANT to watch a little bit of TVeeeeeeee!"). A Dr. Toddler and Mr. Hyde. And I fear the end result will be a gang of imaginary friends that do nothing but send my kid to timeout, over and over, all day long.

Tax-deductable contribution

I'm still volunteering for the battered women's program, still taking hotline calls once a week for a couple of hours. Like a lot of nonprofits in Illinois right now, the program I volunteer for is facing a pretty major financial crisis. The state is about two shakes from passing a ridiculous budget that, in lieu of an income tax increase, will cut significant funding to social service agencies. The mental health center in town will lose half its staff. The program serving victims of child abuse and child sexual assault will close its doors. The domestic violence program will lose its court advocacy and shelter services, among other things.

Last fall, the program opened up a resale shop to help raise money to subsidize the cost of services. They bought a house on a busy street, filled it up with racks and shelves, and opened it up as a business. Everything they sell is donated: mostly women's and children's clothes, shoes, toys, household items, books, the odd piece of exercise equipment or furniture. They're open six days a week; all the proceeds go towards providing services to victims of violence and their kids. In addition to my hotline shift, I help out at the store once a week. It's fun, mostly; I work the cash register, sort and price donations, buy armfulls of Dora-related merchandise to enable Cletus the Former Fetus' growing habit.

Today I was going through some big black trash bags of stuff that had been left in the store's drop-off bin. I stuck my arm inside one of them, felt around a bit until something sharp pricked my hand. The bag was full of crafting cast-offs: half-finished cross stitching projects, stained fabric, rusty sewing needles, half-shredded quilting magazines from the 80s, straight pins. Someone packed up the bottom half of a closet, sharps and all, tossed it all into an unlabeled bag and left it. "For charity."

There were salvageable bits. I gathered any usable craft supplies into ziploc bags and priced them at $3.00 per lot. Every little bit helps, or something. But I can't help but indulge in a little self-righteous anger. Who is the person who thinks that a) someone else deserves to buy dull, rusty needles, and b) staff or volunteers at a resource-strapped nonprofit should have to sort through bags filled with loose pins and dirty kleenex (yes. seriously.)? It's the same mentality that says "Hey, this shirt is stained and torn and I won't wear it anymore... but I bet a POOR PERSON will! I'll donate it!" Or: "This television no longer works, and I don't want to wait until the large trash pick-up day later on in the summer. I'll donate it!"

You can always tell when someone's donating crap. They come in to the store and hand over their bags without making eye contact. They practically sprint back out to the car. They never ask for a receipt for tax purposes. In contrast, people donating gently used (or even really-old-but-still-usable) items often stop to offer a summary description. "This bag is full of girls' clothing. My daughter can't wear them anymore." They look around the shop for awhile. They smile and chat and ask how the store is doing.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I believe that beggars (for lack of a less offensive saying to appropriate) CAN be choosers. I mean, come on. There are so many people out there who are willing to donate nice things, suitable things -- I'm not talking about new merchandise, I'm talking about clean merchandise. I'm talking about merchandise that's all in one piece, that fulfills its basic intended function (i.e. a toaster that toasts, or a book with all its pages). If you've got trash, just throw it away. Recycle it. Take it to the dump. But don't assume that just because someone is hard-up (and the majority of people who shop at this store are hard-up, a significant portion of them clients of the agency), they should buy and use and wear garbage.

The end. And a hearty fuck you to the person whose crusty snot-rag I ended up holding in my hand this afternoon, whoever and wherever you may be. The downtrodden citizens of western Illinois thank you for your kind donation.

Progress report

Things are looking up on the homefront. Daniel has graduated from a walker to a cane, which he can use to get around my parents' house. He goes to physical therapy three times a week. Next week he goes to his local doctor for a pretty standard checkup; the week after that he goes back to the city with my parents, to meet with his surgical team and start Next Steps. Next Steps, of course, being the kinder, gentler way of saying "Slicing You Up To Figure Out Just How Bad This All Is."

We are going back this weekend for Father's Day. When I talk to my mom on the phone to check on my brother's progress, she says "You'll feel better when you see him. He gets really down, but he looks much better." Any thoughts on a good pick-me-up present for a housebound 26-year-old who already owns every DVD known to man?

In other news, the husband's college finished classes two weeks ago. Commencement was a rainy mess, but it was fun to see the husband and all of our new friends march up the aisle in their faculty robes and fancy caps. After the ceremony, Cletus asked, "Daddy, were you wearing a special dress?" Now that it's summer, it's like I'm married again! I have someone to hang out with in the evenings! I don't have to do every household chore myself, feeling like a martyred housewife! This past weekend, for instance, the husband and I watched a movie together (Wendy and Lucy - don't bother) AND played hours of Rock Band on the Wii! Today, he took the car to the dealership to get a new timing belt! This weekend, he's accompanying me to my parents' house! IT'S INSANE!

And speaking of summer, can we talk about the awesomeness that is So You Think You Can Dance? I know that some of you watch it (and I maintain that the rest of you should). This year, who's in for a finale viewing party on Twitter?

And someone remind me that as soon as I get my shit together for longer than 15 minutes at a stretch, I've got about 30 obscenity-studded posts on Sonia Sotomayor, misogyny, and racism just waiting to be spewed forth.

Buddy bands! They work!

This made me laugh out loud for the first time in a week:

The new normal

A dear blog-friend sent me an email today sharing some of her experiences in dealing with the chronic and life-threatening illness of her geographically far away father. One thing in particular really struck a chord with me -- she said that it took her a long time to be able to go out and have fun without being seized with fear that while she was laughing the night away, her father was on the other side of the country, dying, that exact same moment.

My OCD is such that I have always, to some degree, harbored those kinds of thoughts. It's something I used to work on a lot in therapy, my tendency to fixate on worst-case scenarios at inopportune times. Out to dinner with friends? What a perfect moment to randomly start worrying that Cletus the Former Fetus is at home, falling down a flight of stairs at the babysitter's feet!

Only now, with my brother, the thing is that my fears are more justified (although Cletus IS crazy-fast on those stairs...). I have been doing ok when I'm just puttering around the house, except for when the phone rings. When the phone rings, all bets are off and my stomach drops to my feet and I run like a mad woman to check the caller ID. Is it my parents? Is it my one of my other siblings on a cell phone, driving behind an ambulance on the way to the hospital? Cletus' daycare provider called before 7:00 this morning to let me know that she would be opening late on account of a dentist appointment; I barely understood a word she told me. All I knew was that the phone had woken me up, and all I could think was no.

What's hardest for me is leaving the house -- or rather, coming back home after leaving. I first found out about Daniel's ruptured aneurysm upon returning home from a Friday night shopping trip with a friend. We both had our cell phones turned off, and the husband had been trying to contact me for hours. He met me at the door as we stumbled onto the porch with bags and boxes. He said, "You need to call your parents." While Daniel was being airlifted to the hospital, bleeding internally and paralyzed from the waist down, I was getting a chocolate shake at the Hardees drive-through.

Here's the new normal: deep breathing and heart palpitations every time my palm hits that back doorknob and starts to turn it.