When I was growing up, my mom was a "stay at home" mom. My dad had a job that evidently was enough to make ends meet (although when I started helping my parents organize their finances at age 12 or 13, I was a bit shocked to see how disorganized they were...)
I love that my mom was there. I love that she cleaned and that she cared. I hated that she nagged about my bedroom being a mess, and I didn't understand the near-constant "we can't have anything nice" refrain that was uttered when one of my siblings or a pet or I scratched/stained/spoiled a piece of furniture or carpet or hardbound Time/Life volume.
She let us have the run of our space in the house and she wasn't overly anal about anything, and any time she gave us grief--even if it annoyed me at the time--I understand it to be reasonable.
As an adult, I didn't have my mom to clean up for me. This is, as I reflect upon it, one of the reasons that my marriage didn't work. Chores were, perhaps, a symptom of other issues, but at a basic level I didn't WANT to sweep, I didn't WANT to make my bed, I didn't WANT to do dishes (even if "doing dishes" was merely rinsing them off and putting them in the dishwasher).
It's been over two years now that I've been on my own... actually almost 2.5 years. It's not just the gallons of hard alcohol flowing through my veins at the moment that make me ponder the way that time flies and consider how different my life is now than it was this time in 2005.
The point of this blog (such as it is) is not to wax nostalgic, nor is it to gloat about how great my life is, nor is it to express regret. Those are all too big for me to currently wrap my touchdown-addled brain around, so I'm focusing on a specific portion of my marriage and my current life.
That portion? House chores. Cleaning up. Specifically: vacuuming.
My ex and I had a nice vacuum. I don't remember where we bought it, but (as with so many other things that we shared) we bought the best and assumed we'd be sharing it forever. When I moved out, she kept the vacuum... which, given that I assumed the role of caretaker for our (my) three cats, was an interesting decision on our part.
I bought a vacuum a month or two after being on my own that was pretty well rated, but was definitely of limited quality. I think I paid $90 or so for it, and I had no idea how long it would last. My first apartment was approximately the size of a four square court, so I thought that it would be fine.
While it worked as advertised at first, about nine months in it simply stopped working. It turned on and sounded the same but the suction was for shit. (That's what he said.)
When it came time to replace the vacuum, I went cheap again. As with my first purchase, I did homework and got the best possible vacuum I could... but for under $100.
Last week my carpet was getting gross. Cat hair, cat litter, infected syringes, and Garfield comic strips were strewn from corner to corner. I roused myself to vacuum, and I cleaned/unclogged the tubes (not a euphemism for masturbation) in the vacuum and ... it didn't work. Again: it worked, but it didn't suck.
A vacuum without suction is like a chick at a bar with a wedding ring: might look good and give the right vibe but is ultimately useless.
I tried to vacuum a 4x8 foot portion of the floor and it merely scattered the falderol to the adjoining segment. In spite of going over it three, five, seven times, it didn't get better. It was a fucking waste of time and it was depressing.
The crazy thing is that I remember my decision making process regarding that vacuum perfectly: I knew I was buying a cheap vacuum, and I knew that it would only last a year or so (if I was lucky). Was I to be mad at past Ed O., or was I to look forward?
Past Ed O. is not perfect, but he's pretty badass. How could I stay mad at him?
So I ordered a new vacuum online. A Dyson, which is probably more vacuum than I need, but should last until global warming kills me (November 22, 2009 by my current climate forecasting model).
After spending a buttload (although not an assload) of money onlne, I was informed I'd have to wait 5-10 days for it to arrive. Given the state of my carpet and my cats' propensity to both shed and vomit with great aplomb and regularity, I clearly was hoping for closer to five days.
Fortunately, the Overstock.com gods (I believe their names are Rodney and Trilinda, oddly enough) smiled upon me. I received my vacuum today, FOUR days after ordering it. I brought the package home after work, eschewed a nap, failed to eat dinner, and vacuumed.
It was a housecleaning orgasm, basically. My new household appliance--nay, my new household amigo--performed flawlessly. One swimpe across the area cleaned it. It had some quirks, but I believe those idiosyncracies can justifiably be called "features". I think I'm in love.
Looking back at my recalcitrance towards chores both as a child and as a married child, I am a bit stunned. I wander around LQA with a stupid hat cocked a la C.C. Sabathia, and I drink and make a fool of myself in front of friends and strangers... I am entirely uncommitted in 95% of my life and feel like I've got some sort of fucked up Peter Pan complex going on... I don't know what I want to do in terms of career or my life in any sort of intermediate to long term. In so many ways, by any objective measure, I have regressed in maturity from three years ago.
And yet.
And yet I vacuum. I do dishes. I sweep. I do laundry (although sporadically, and with much cussing). I do things, especially vacumming with my new Dyson, not just because they need doing, but because I take some pleasure in making my place look just a bit more respectable.
Maybe there's some sort stack of maturity chits, and I can reallocate them to different areas of my life to where I take different things more seriously... I dunno. It's odd being 34 years old, living with three cats, not knowing what the fuck is going on in my life beyond work Monday morning and karaoke sometime soon but knowing that, as I pushed the new vacuum, I was grinning from ear to ear as it picked up kitty litter and other crap on my floor.
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