Far from Godliness

At last I am on vacation. So far, I've spent most of it cleaning my bedroom. I started at 10 a.m. By 2:30 I was beat. The room's still a mess by most standards.

Cleaning freaks me out. As soon as I managed to clean off the top of my dresser, I was struck by a dull thud of sadness. The vast open surfaces and the unobstructed view of my mirror gave me a tiny pang of mini-agorophobia. Where were all my little friends, the dust pixies?

The stuff on top of the dresser had to go somewhere. "Just put it in the middle of the floor for now." I told myself. I figured, If I just kept moving around, I'd maintain momentum. "Just clean off surfaces one by one." Soon the sight of all the stuff in my room (and I try to keep my stuff to a minimum, which can be a challenge even on my sad wages) made my brain short circuit, and I often found myself sitting and staring on the edge of my bed, like Holly Hunter in that scene from Raising Arizona --you know the one-- where she's lost all interest in housework and law enforcement.

The next trap I fell into was microcleaning. I spent rediculous amounts of time fixated on cleaning a few inconspicious spots while the rest of the room remained in chaos. But my, you could eat off that 3 x 5 inch area of the book shelf that I sponged with Murphy's Oil soap, then scoured with baking soda, then wiped again.