January 5, 2002
During a week long absence of my spouse over the new year, who tends to accumulate and distribute detritus about our abode in a way that brings to mind the word spoor, I discarded objects and cleaned with an energy and enthusiasm for the task that I thought had deserted me. In most households I have occupied I have been the cleaner. Cleanliness held no fascination for my parents. I lived with a man who subsisted on porridge and fried sausages. I would discover pots sporting the most fantastic blue and green moulds and Antarctica of sausage lard sculpted into frying pans all stowed under a bed or in a closet. Suppression superseded soap in his domestic system. My current house mates on the North Fork apparently find domestic chores to be as compelling as daily Bible reading. Cleanliness is not next to godliness, in fact I suspect it may be indicative of small mindedness, mania and neuroses, but it does appeal to me in odd ways. It’s one of those chores that you are alone with, you and your conscience. It’s for the pleasure of completing a task that needs to be performed on a repetitive basis and without rewards financial or professional. Who the hell will notice if you clean the plastic box in which you keep your cleaning supplies? Nobody. But it reassures me to know that I’ve resisted the temptation not to clean it. This latest episode of cleaning convinced me that the pleasure accrued from cleaning might be applicable when tackling other, grander projects in life. Quiet tenacity without expectation of reward. You can just pay someone to do it of course, but it’s an inexpensive and straightforward way in which to garner some feelings of virtue. Others have busier lives and for them it makes sense to pay for it, but I have expended considerable energy on avoiding a life of extreme busyness. A certain level of distraction is desirable, but your average New York day - as documented, for instance, in a recent issue of the New York Observer describing a day in the life of certain City notables on September the 10th - resembles some kind of assault course that would shave my nerves to a bloody fray. Short of being able to retreat to a cork lined room one of the things you can do to be less busy on other’s terms, but to be amply distracted, is to clean your own toilet.
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During a week long absence of my spouse over the new year, who tends to accumulate and distribute detritus about our abode in a way that brings to mind the word spoor, I discarded objects and cleaned with an energy and enthusiasm for the task that I thought had deserted me. In most households I have occupied I have been the cleaner. Cleanliness held no fascination for my parents. I lived with a man who subsisted on porridge and fried sausages. I would discover pots sporting the most fantastic blue and green moulds and Antarctica of sausage lard sculpted into frying pans all stowed under a bed or in a closet. Suppression superseded soap in his domestic system. My current house mates on the North Fork apparently find domestic chores to be as compelling as daily Bible reading. Cleanliness is not next to godliness, in fact I suspect it may be indicative of small mindedness, mania and neuroses, but it does appeal to me in odd ways. It’s one of those chores that you are alone with, you and your conscience. It’s for the pleasure of completing a task that needs to be performed on a repetitive basis and without rewards financial or professional. Who the hell will notice if you clean the plastic box in which you keep your cleaning supplies? Nobody. But it reassures me to know that I’ve resisted the temptation not to clean it. This latest episode of cleaning convinced me that the pleasure accrued from cleaning might be applicable when tackling other, grander projects in life. Quiet tenacity without expectation of reward. You can just pay someone to do it of course, but it’s an inexpensive and straightforward way in which to garner some feelings of virtue. Others have busier lives and for them it makes sense to pay for it, but I have expended considerable energy on avoiding a life of extreme busyness. A certain level of distraction is desirable, but your average New York day - as documented, for instance, in a recent issue of the New York Observer describing a day in the life of certain City notables on September the 10th - resembles some kind of assault course that would shave my nerves to a bloody fray. Short of being able to retreat to a cork lined room one of the things you can do to be less busy on other’s terms, but to be amply distracted, is to clean your own toilet.
- rachael 1-05-2002 9:54 pm