Unfuck Your Habitat

nina-in-technicolor:

Dear inhabitants of UfYH, I have a confession to make:

I marathoned tonight.

It wasn’t on purpose—all I had left was the little bitchy stuff, like dusting, and I’d put CATS on the television and it kept distracting me, which added substantially to my time (whoops). But I realised something—two somethings, in fact:

1) I have lived for so long in a house so fucked-up that the idea of “being done” cleaning was completely alien to me. I marathoned because I kept looking around and going “Yeah, but—yeah, but—yeah, but—” and never stopping to think that putting Bar Keepers Friend on the counter was unnecessary—I did it last night and didn’t cook at home today. I didn’t need to bleach my tub, because it was bleached yesterday. Cleaning the toilet would have been a waste of time, because UfYH got me off my ass to get cleaner disks from Fry’s like I’ve been meaning to for seven months. Even the floor is so well-vacuumed (thanks, Roomba!) that not only has it changed colour, the nap is lifted—I can feel each little nub under my feet. For the first time in my entire life, I can God’s-honest say “I’m done.”

2) When I looked up at the end of CATS and went “wait, that’s a two-hour show! The fuck you mean, it’s over? Even though I repeated four songs twice? No way!” it suddenly dawned on me that I was having fun. I wasn’t “dusting that godawful glass TV stand why did we get that.” I was testing the magic powers of vinegar (which is approximately 32894723 metric tons more effective than Windex, by the way). I wasn’t “doing the dishes,” a task I loathe so much that at summer camp as a kid I used to offer to switch latrine duty FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK with my cabinmates if they would only do the dishes—I was unfucking the dishwasher. And I wasn’t “scrubbing the floor”—I was playing with my Erase-It (I mentioned before that I found sorcery under a generic name, right?). I’ve never had fun cleaning before. Ever.

So, yes, I marathoned. But you know what? Other than being tired in the “holy fuckballs Nina it is 5am why the actual fuck” kind of way (Unfucked the house, fucked my sleep schedule—that’s okay, I can unfuck that too), I actually feel really good. The private areas (my bedroom, both our closets) still need unfucked, but you know what else?

I asked my dad last night if he would have believed when he and mom left for Texas if he would have believed I could get the house LIVABLE in two weeks, much less CLEAN.

There was this big long pause, and then he said ” … . . no.”

And you know what? My floordrobe and the mess that is my closet can wait, just for this week, til I get back from vacation, and then it’s “Katy bar the door, mess”—I know how to unfuck them now. Right now I have just this to say (bandwidth users take note, picture-heavy behind the cut):

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