Mar
01
Today I engaged myself in such a horrible, unsavory, torturous activity that I can barely even say the word without shuddering in horror. Cleaning.I wouldn't say that I'm a messy person, but I'm only selectively organized. My closet is organized by color, yet my bed is always unmade. My music collection is immaculate, yet there is a Smurf village among the clutter on my computer desk. This is the oxymoron that is my life.
I don't even hate cleaning, per se. My sense of accomplishment in extreme cleaning lasts me for months at a time, which is ultimately my downfall. The process is like this:
Immediately after cleaning: My room is beautiful! I'm going to keep it looking this way forever and have a world record for cleanest, most awesome room.
A couple months later: There are a few things thrown on chairs and misplaced. No biggie. My room just looks "lived in."
A few months after that: The denial period. A black hole must have eaten the remote control to my iHome because I just barely cleaned it.
Then eventually: This is getting ridiculous. I unravel myself from my cozy blanket of denial.
My previously disastrous room was brought to you by busy-ness, laziness, and lack of motivation. I have a procrastinator attitude as well: Doing little bits of work at a time is just too easy. If you load an unrealistic amount of work on yourself and manage to do it all, you are the most sensational accomplish-er of things in the entire history of the world. You are Oprah.
Not to mention whenever I clean my room, my parents act like I've won the Nobel Prize. While they usually claim that it looks like a cyclone tore up the place, my mom proudly paraded my dad around my newly polished room. If I had kept my room clean, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. The tactic is that I make my parents disappointed and lower their expectations of me to ground zero. Every once in a while I'll do these insignificant things that make me seem like Daughter of the Year. "Whitney, you're outside!" or "Whitney, you woke up before noon!" It's worked so far.
The whole process was a little intimidating, honestly. There was one moment when I found a long lost item under my bed and I was sure that a monster would grab me forcefully by the arm and drag me into the abyss. However, it was pretty neat finding things I'd long forgotten about.
My favorite of the day: Old school assignments. I never seemed to take school seriously. However, my teachers mistook my snark for actual writing talent and gave me A's.
Exhibit A, actual excerpts from a script for Little Red Riding Hood: the Musical that I wrote for Music 1010:
WOLF: You are brilliant, you devilishly wolfy self! Dressing in drag is the perfect way to get a meal. Although I suppose I could've just gone to McDonald's. But I'd better practice a little bit so as to get into character... (Clears throat.) (Old lady voice) Oh, my heavenly ginger snaps! What a mess the young folk have become! I remember when I was a little girl, we had to walk fifteen miles barefoot in the snow to the drugstore just to get a packet of spearmint gum and a yo-yo.
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: Hello, Grandmother!
WOLF: Hello, young (realizes he never knew her name) um...I'm sorry. I'm getting a bad case of the grandmotherly forgetfulness! (chuckles) Um...
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: Little Red Riding Hood?
WOLF: Oh, yes! I never would've picked out that name. You look more like a Sarah...or a Penelope...
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: You saved me, Axeman! Thank you! But how did you know that I was in trouble?
AXEMAN: I have no idea, actually. I guess I heard some screaming and wanted to investigate the ruckus. Not to mention my axeman senses were tingling.
NARRATOR: The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon happily munching on Little Red Riding Hood's delicious basket of goodies. The moral of the story is this: If you want dinner, go to McDonald's. Don't dress in drag.
Then there was the bill I wrote for Government. While others chose serious subjects like medicine and abortion, I wrote a bill about how the letter "W" should be recognized as the best letter of the alphabet. I made bulletproof points such as "since 'W' is the beginning letter of 'water,' we would dehydrate and die without it" and "E is the most used letter in the alphabet, and it looks kind of like a 'W' when you tilt your head to the right." Regardless, this bill was immediately rejected in fake Congress. One of my more outspoken classmates even said it was pointless. I just like to believe that I'm one of those misunderstood, offbeat, artist-y types. At least that's been my excuse since I was thirteen.
Besides, if Bert believes it, it must be true.
Bert from Sesame Street would smile upon (or at least his unibrow would smile upon) my room cleaning and W loving ways.
If you load an unrealistic amount of work on yourself and manage to do it all, you are the most sensational accomplish-er of things in the entire history of the world. You are Oprah.
Hell yes! I'm the greatest accomplish-er when it comes to this! I've always wanted to be Oprah!
Also, I'd totally go see that Red Riding Hood play. You're a genius. I think we should make it happen.
♥♥♥