Defense! Defense! GOOOOO RANDOM!

Every day I'm shufflin'

Well, damn.

This is getting personal.

I have a confession: I have domestic help. It's one of those luxuries that I justify because if I didn't very, very bad things would happen. I am the oldest of three girls, and by a few years, and as is natural, I was the one who was taught and expected to clean, and have done so forever, it seems; and, in the attrition of cleanliness wars, I surrendered to a professional. (It should be noted that my sisters are both very cluttered and messy, but we love them anyway.)

The woman who cleans my place rocks. She is quirky and awesome, but her best, superlative personality trait is she does not judge. Really. It reminds me of this scene from The Simpsons where Marge wins cleaning services and preemptively hears voices in her head, "UNCLEAN! Curly-whirly!" She really doesn't care if my junk drawers are junk drawers, and once in a while I'll have her de-clutter an area. She did hide my sake bottle behind some to-go mugs, which I thought was odd, but made me realize again, no one truly knows us, or what or who we are. No matter how intimately familiar she is with my can openers and rings in the bathtub - she doesn't really know me.

But I used to be very neat - and it nearly killed me. There was one moment, years ago, when I spilled laundry soap and it damn near broke me. I just couldn't keep up with the levels of perfection I felt were ascribed to me--those voices, that damn dialogue, we all hear from time to time, that says, "You're not clean enough, good enough, skinny enough, or not worthy."

And I stopped.

My mom would come to visit, and do that frowny-face look, but over time I got over it, or so I thought. My job and personal life spawned clutter like breeding trolls. Always one more book to read, one more list to make, one more plate to wash. My creative escape is writing, and my blog was meant to be fun and free. Yes, I like good design, and have tried to keep up with putting stories and theme songs, etc. on their own pages, but the blogroll was meant like a stack of magazines and newspapers, meant to be perused at random, interest and will. I guess I kind of figured that folks knew most of those blogs, and if they weren't familiar, they could click if they wanted. But the roll isn't for them-- just like the blog, it's for me. It's my stack as I'm getting my mental toenails done.

Over the years I have managed to silence most of those judgmental voices. I do what I can, when I can, but admittedly things of late have overwhelmed me. Big time. So when Navi doesn't like how I keep, or rather unkempt, my blogroll is, that puts a real voice on it. Not just some made up phantom. I know her intentions are grand and sweet, but I just can't do it. I am not going to make three or four different blogrolls to organize by topic. Not going to happen. For one, that would be hypocritical of me -- I can't put myself in a category. What is this blog? Neo-jazz fusion British punk post-invasion grunge? Something like that.

I had never heard of OCD before, and then was helping a sister of a friend move. She was a hoarder long before I had heard of that, too. I remember she had mounds of stuff in her apartment, and the task was monumental. She got fixated on one tiny object of hers, and was seemingly paralyzed to put it in a damn box and start taking her sh*t to the truck. It was a transformative moment. I saw the crazy, in other words. Now I stare at my own mounds of clutter and feel transfixed, deer-in-headlights.

Maybe I should get my mom to come visit again soon, and pretend I'm that girl again who was scared when she looked behind the bathroom door and saw I didn't sweep.

Navi - make you a deal. And no, you don't have to clean out my underwear drawer. If you come to the US we are finding my sake bottle and doing some partying. The dust bunnies will dance with us, and I promise you will not catch any diseases from my toilets. I actually enjoy the big purge, and am in no danger of becoming a hoarder. In fact, I tend to slash-and-burn clutter and stuff. If this blog becomes too much of a pain, then I'll just take a match to it. (Why do you think I leveled a fire mage?) But hear this clearly, my very sweet friend - you didn't tell me anything I wasn't already feeling and sensing. My real life mental and physical clutter must be tended to, and now. I'm not going to clean up the blog this afternoon, but finish capping out Valor Points, and then clean up a bit. I'll be like Zooey Deschanel and tell Siri to remind me tomorrow, because today, we dance!

Theme song: LMFAO