I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas

For the first time in three weeks, my throat isn’t sore.

I was gonna drag ass into the office yesterday morning on account of the fact that I have this coming Monday off (I’m going to West Palm for the weekend!) and I felt guilty missing a full day of work. But as I was lying there in my fever dreams, it dawned on me that I could use a day off to not only get well, but also get my apartment back in shape.

I’ll be honest. It was pretty gross. I haven’t really paid any attention to my apartment since summer. So there were two months of dirty clothes in the closet, books, CDs, and guitars everywhere, plus a fine layer of dust on everything. It looked like the Titanic. I won’t even tell you about the sheets and towels. Suffice it to say that I was beginning to be convinced that I wasn’t sick, my environment was.

So I decided to stay home.

I was online all day, checking and replying to emails. But mostly, I was ordering both my internal and external worlds.

I ate lots of oat meal. I drank lots of orange juice. I made a fruit smoothy. I took vitamins, Tylenol, and lots of DayQuil. I watched “Four Brothers” (pretty bad ass), “Cinderella Man” (which got me teary), and half of “Fever Pitch” (no chemistry).

I did six loads of laundry (including sheets and towels). I mopped the hardwood floors with Murphey’s Oil Soap. I cleaned the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. And I wiped down 3/4 of my apartment’s surfaces with Windex.

Frankly, it was borderline obsessive compulsive. I was convinced that if everything around me was clean, I would feel better. And though I worked up quite a sweat running up and down six flights of stairs, I do. Though I’m really looking forward to West Palm.

80° and sunny on Sunday.

I think I feel better already.