On Cleanliness

I've come to realize that I have a "thing" about cleanliness. So I live in this new, cheap, air-conditioned apartment, which is all well and good except for my roommates, who are lovely and friendly in every other respect, are lacking in home hygiene habits such as regularly removing the trash and cleaning the bathroom. I have no idea how in the past I lived with unacceptable situations such as cat litter (sure, defecate in the dining room or next to my bathroom, little animal! spread your little pee-absorbing pellets all over the place where I walk with my bare feet!). I cannot stand it now though. I do not produce tiny hairs in the bathroom, I hang my towels rather than leaving them wetly on the floor, I do not spill sudsy water all over the floor, I wipe away my general bathroom dirty presence.

In addition, I prided myself on the character trait of assertiveness, but that seems to have almost wholly deserted me in the face of these daily assaults to my preferred state of cleanliness. I think I feel that since I moved in after the roommates, I have no right to ask them to change their preferred method of living in filth. But I am paying rent, and I suppose I do. It's become a silent battle inside my head: do I ask roommate 2 to take out the trash which is almost all his anyway and is no longer nicely inside its bag because he stuffed it too full of beer cans and frozen pizza boxes (the manufacturers should start putting those in bags if they insist on continuing to produce them) and so therefore will be particularly nasty to dispose of; or do I just do it myself again? I have gone to bed resolving to choose the first option in the morning, but I still feel anxious. And I cleaned the bathroom before taking a shower (I prefer to clean my own body in a clean space) as a way to ease this anxiety.

Which leads me to my second point, which is that I consider my relationship to cleanliness neurotic because of its connection to anxiety, as expecting clean shared spaces is really quite normal. Exhibit A: 3 am, July 31, like 3 years ago, my roommate S and I are cleaning out our old apartment and moving into a new one a few blocks away. This apartment had been continually leased to about 6 years of students, we estimate, without the barely-legal landlords ever cleaning it or really, looking at it at all. We are the end of this line of roommates and must leave it empty and clean. Despite our landlord's general tendency to not give a shit, we also know that they can be somewhat arbitrary and vindictive. A few years ago, for example, we got eviction notices because they had lost our leases. So I am annoyed at the injustice of continually moving into dirty apartments that I am required to leave clean, for a faceless corporation that I hated. But since I also feared them, rather than leave the apartment just marginally clean enough to not get in trouble, I went totally insane. S refers to this as the "oven cleaner incident" wherein against his advice, I pulled the stove away from the wall and applied oven cleaner to the side to get off years of accumulated sticky gunk, and he had to make me go sit outside when I became light-headed from the harsh fumes. I was also cleaning the walls with Windex, pleased at how much dirt was coming off. At our final apartment move-out show-down, I compromised by leaving a dirty corner of the top of the fridge and leaving random cleaning supplies and related crap in the apartment for the new tenants who we knew were a bunch of not-giving-a-shit college students. This cleaning insanity is not only related to my fear/hate of my landlords, but is also a self-reinforcing cycle. Both moving and huge and somewhat unjust cleaning tasks cause me anxiety, and cleaning soothes anxiety, and I enjoy seeing things that I never noticed before were dirty become clean, and very quickly things get all out of proportion.

This picture is only somewhat related. It is my very dirty feet from the crap sandals I wore this summer, which were approximately $5 at CVS and left little cheap-metal dark spots on my feet and also caused me quite a bit of pain. My personal hygiene habits are not nearly as neurotic as my apartment-cleaning tendencies, but I do require clean feet & face to go to sleep under normal circumstances. This was one of the habits I developed in the summer I spent on a ranch in Wyoming working as a maid/kitchen wench (the term is "cabin girl"). The other habits are making my bed and whiskey. In one of S's rare dispersions of free psychoanalysis, he pointed out that an anxiety about personal hygiene that does not meet the standards of others (my mother, most prominently) may relate to episodes such as the oven cleaner incident. He might be right.

California!

I'm in So Cal for the weekend for a conference. It's already lovely and I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy traveling by myself! Bought some Blenheim super-spicy ginger ale from a cute soda-fountain shop, all the way from South Carolina. Upon arrival, I also ate an orange that I bought in Chicago and was likely grown around here. It's funny how much food travels around.

It's clear, sunny, hot, and kind of boring here (more antique stores than seems even remotely sustainable), but I strolled around, met a lot of friendly people, ate some tasty tacos (So Cal does seafood tacos RIGHT), and now I'm going to see if I can't take a dip in the pool. I'll try to take some pictures, and I'll try even HARDER to get to the beach (it's only a train ride away but I have to, you know, work).

Blanket Espadrilles

I apologize for my lack of a better image, I tried to put a few together with paint which is hopelessly frustrating. Will get photoshop one day. Anyway, I started seeing some woven multicolor flats like this and wanted to make you guess: which one is most expensive?

Ok game over. Top left is Rocket Dog, $31.50 here, far right is Rachel Rachel Roy, $59, and the bottom is Missoni, similar ones for $311 here (it comes in other prints or whatever). I dig the Rocket Dog ones but also these by Havaianas in conjunction with Missoni ($130). They also don't seem to have the jute sole that I know from experience gets awful as soon as it gets wet. Cue daydream about Brazil....!

Summer, Longing

Summer in Chicago is absolutely the best thing ever. My new roommate stood on the porch and declared: "Another day in paradise!" Yet yesterday I was in a funk, feeling that it's slipping away, that I'm not DOING what I want to be doing, that summer will escape without me grabbing it and shaking the living daylights out of it. It bothers me that I can't just let it happen, that I feel the need to wring it out completely. I think sometimes blogs and the internet makes this tendency worse-- when all you see is swimming holes and sunbathing and glamorous beaches and boats and impossibly beautiful women lounging in the sun, and running through sprinklers and BBQs and fires and backyards and and AND AND (seriously though click on my links, they're some of my most-read blogs and/or most summer-evocative posts). I think this is also, for me, compounded because I am only part-time employed and am waiting on a "real job" that will be "fulfilling" and "pay my bills." (I had a real unconsciously Scarlett O'Hara moment the other day, declaring to myself that I'll never borrow money like this again!)

Anyway, I feel this way when I travel sometimes too, the urge to suck it all up and DO THINGS and HAVE EXPERIENCES and not waste time lying in a hostel bed even if I am feeling sick or tired or really actually enjoying reading my book on the roof or whatever. I think it's a fear of the winter, of the dull months where I don't do anything "interesting" when I'll wish (fear of regret?) that I'd not spent my summer mornings inside typing but outside biking and swimming and being gloriously deliciously happy. I don't think it should be this way. When I take a nap on the grass in the sun with a friend, I shouldn't (shoulda, coulda, woulda) feel a twinge of sadness because this feeling will end. Not everyone does.

I think it's why we document, photograph, try to prove to ourselves that we're taking advantage of things before they slip away (suddenly, I can't imagine what it would be like to have a child, growing up and away before your eyes). This morning, I took back up my planner to which I'm devoted when working and in school, and wrote in what I've done this summer. I've certainly been busy, social, having fun, doing summer things, but it gets overwhelming, somehow. It's very graspy, it's very anti-Zen. It's much easier for me to let go of bad feelings than good ones, which I want to preserve like the summer zucchini in my fridge.

Pictures: by my friend T + Instagram of me at the beach, by me of my friends on the 4th of July.

Doppelganger

I got on the Sartorialist! Just kidding, but according to my friend K this girl looks scarily like me. Also, she's searching for chairs in an alley-- could we be more soulmates?

Since dying my hair I've shied away from wearing red but this looks awesome. I think redheads can wear red, it's just a really bold look. Not for the days you want to try to blend in, I guess.

Clothes for Grown-Ups

I went to Forever 21 yesterday with a friend, even though I'm morally against the throw-away and ripped-off fashion of stores like that, sometimes in a moment of weakness I cave to the lures of fast, cheap consumerism. A week or so ago we'd gone and I tried on an orange loose drapey dress, and I couldn't stop talking about it. My friend had picked it out and told me to try it on -- usually I avoid loose silhouettes, and orange, because it clashes with my hair.

 

There it is! It was nowhere to be found when we went back to the store last night, but I found it online. It was both more expensive and less cute than I remembered, but still a good dress. I ended up buying something "overly sexy" on super-sale. It's short, tight, black and a subtle purple print, vaguely reminds me of a wetsuit, has an exposed black zipper all the way up the front, and has enough coverage for a bra. I'm in love. I don't usually go in for both short and tight, but the rest of it is perfect, and at least it's tough and sexy rather than little-girly and sexy.

Anyway, I was surprised at how few of the dresses there look alright on a tall person like myself. There's just gobs of very short, kinda frilly, flowered dresses that would have looked adorable on me if I was 5. I've noticed a few bloggers seem to go in for this kind of silhouette with a short full skirt, but when I dress like that I feel infantilized and also nervous that I'm flashing the whole world every time the wind blows (which is constantly, because this is Chicago). I actually really like these bloggers, but maybe this style is just not for me. On the other hand, the whole conflation of childishness and sexiness really bothers me. Add my voice to the growing crowd asking for a more grown-up, vintage-inspired look for women. While the femininity signaled in "vintage" clothing is also problematic, I'm much more comfortable in a pencil skirt than a short ruffle.

I hear dudes expressing some kind of interest in "sundresses" and I think the short floral dresses is what they mean. And they look awfully cute on the models, but that's maybe because the photos are cut off above the knee! When you see some girl tugging it down all the time, it's less cute. Heaven forbid she try to bike (not that I can bike in my new dress either). Am I being a prude?

My New Apartment

This is what moving feels like! I've been trying to unpack but ended up slumped against a pile of winter coats on my bed that I don't know how to find a home for. BUT! My new place is great! It is God-awful hot here today and yesterday and I am so grateful for air conditioning. Sometimes I feel guilty for a/c, like that I'll get used to it and not be able to deal when I don't have it (surely, in my next apartment) or that I'll appreciate the cooler nights less, or something. A constant theme in my life: being afraid of any luxury. The illustration is by Julie Morstad and I found it on What Possessed Me.

 Haha unpacking sucks! But check it out, dudes, I have a closet! I have very carefully packed it chock-full of all my stuff that was ferreted away in various shared closets in my old apartment. My dad was a master packer, and I inherited the same obsessiveness.

My room is so big that my bookshelves fit in there too! It's out of control. Turns out I have even more books than fit because I was colonizing other roommates bookshelf space. Oops.

 

This is the view out one of my windows. I have another tiny one way up in the corner at the top of the wall, above my bed. It made a nice cross-breeze when the windows were open the first night I was here. One might ask, but you have a/c, I thought? Ah, but the first night I was here, there was an epic thunderstorm! I watched lightning crack across the sky from my front window, and saw it hit the lightning rods on top of the Sears Tower which I can just barely see (!!!!). Then there was a floor-shaking crack and the power went out. A few minutes later, the hail started (!!!) and we heard a cry from the bathroom, where a hailstone broke the bathroom window and hit my new roommate! Bad omens, said my best friend. But I thought it was auspicious, a mark of a new, exciting phase of life. 

Here's a couple quotes about big changes and courage that I read on comments on What Possessed Me that are bucking me up:

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin

Live to the point of tears. - Camus