2050: not a moment too soon

I have become someone who only blogs about housework. Forgive me.

But god, when did cleaning start taking up such a high percentage of my life? Barely an evening goes by where something does not require hovered or cleaned or anti-bacteria-ed. The Boyfriend lives in blissful ignorance of the home the woodlice are making under our radiator, or the darkening rim in the bath, or the fact the oven needs cleaning.

It must be a happy world he inhabits.

A world where dirty washing reappears cleaned in wardrobes, the toilet magically smells of pine, and you have no interaction whatsoever with a toilet brush.

Let me be clear, The Boyfriend certainly does not think that cleaning is woman’s work, rather he does not see the mess. And when I point it out, usually with bottle of bleach in hand, a crazed expression on my face, and my voice a full octave above the usual pitch that I am,

 ‘fed up, sick of cleaning, is this really what you think I want to do in an evening? Yes I do feel put upon? Oh my god is that MOULD, this house is a TIP, how can you not see the crumbs everywhere? How have you got the new bin dirty?’ 

… He is usually quick to grab the hoover in a show of solidarity.

But I know that I am not alone. Worse still, change is hard to come by, and a study from Oxford University has found that men are unlikely to be doing an equal share of the vacuuming, dusting and washing up much before 2050. 2050. I’ll have retired. That is if retiring is still a concept in 40 years.

But he does try.

The Boyfriend: “I checked the laundry to see if it could be put away, but it seems to be getting damper.”

Me: “No love. That’ll be because that’s a new load.”

The Boyfriend: “ah.”

2050 you say? It’ll be here sooner than we think.

Am I a dreamer

I saw this wonderful sign today and it got me thinking. 

Am I dreaming or taking action? 

Which of these people are you?

F**k the Po-lice

It’s fair to say that housework is the bane of my life. I hate everything about it. I hate that dust gathers at every opportunity, that crumbs appear on freshly hovered carpets (although for this I blame The Boyfriend) and that skirting-boards require any attention whatsoever. I wish I could be one of those people who has a clean home that is ready for visitors at a moment’s notice.

But I’m not. I resent every loathsome minute I have to spend cleaning.

And now it’s gone and gotten worse.

Woodlice have taken residence. They march in, in their droves, taking cover under furniture, rugs and afore mentioned skirting.

As if this isn’t horrific enough, this weekend the following incident occurred.

I was hovering them up, kneeling on the sofa, stretching elegantly over the back, hoover attachment in hand.

And then.

God, what a funny smell.

Jees is that burning?

Holy crap the hoover is smoking.

Oh god, it smells electrical.

*Sees sparks*

Oh, that’ll be my plugged in laptop cable being chewed up by the angry looking smoking hoover.

*Moves at PACE to power supplies and narrowly avoids electrical fire.*

What does this incident tell me? That hovering is dangerous? That woodlice and laptops do not mix? That I really am that stupid?  I do not have time to answer. I have people coming round and a house full of woodlice. Yes, I forgot to mention that during its ‘meltdown’ the hoover spat out all of the woodlice I had spent the previous hour exterminating.

I must get to work.

Be a heroine

One of my writing heroines has died. Nora Ephron, New Yorker, screen writer and general wit died a week ago, aged 71.

As a blogger, I have been considering Nora’s famous piece of advice, “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. When you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.’

Nora had a knack of turning her life experiences into witty insightful entertainment. After being cheated on and left (in a very undignified manner) by her husband, she turned the entire episode into a hit book and film. She said, “I knew the moment my marriage ended that someday it might make a book – if I could just stop crying. One of things I’m proudest of is that I managed convert an event that seemed to me hideously tragic at the time to a comedy – and if that’s not fiction, I don’t know what is."

Here was a woman who lived by her own philosophy, “Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.”

Thanks Nora for your wit and words. I’ll end with the lists that closed what would become your final book, but right now I’ve got to run – I’ve got a bikini to slip into.

"Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don't take it off until you're thirty-four."   ~ Nora Ephron.

What I won't miss

Dry skin
Bad dinners like the one we went to last night
E-mail
Technology in general
My closet
Washing my hair
Bras
Funerals
Illness everywhere
Polls that show that 32 percent of the American people believe in creationism
Polls
Fox TV
The collapse of the dollar
Bar mitzvahs
Mammograms
Dead flowers
The sound of the vacuum cleaner
Bills
E-mail. I know I already said it, but I want to emphasize it.
Small print
Panels on Women in Film
Taking off makeup every night

What I will miss

My kids
Nick
Spring
Fall
Waffles
The concept of waffles
Bacon
A walk in the park
The idea of a walk in the park
The park
Shakespeare in the Park
The bed
Reading in bed
Fireworks
Laughs
The view out the window
Twinkle lights
Butter
Dinner at home just the two of us
Dinner with friends
Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives
Paris
Next year in Istanbul
Pride and Prejudice
The Christmas tree
Thanksgiving dinner
One for the table
The dogwood
Taking a bath
Coming over the bridge to Manhattan
Pie

Musing on meat and burglars: Conversations with The Boyfriend

Missing Meat.

The Boyfriend: (on spotting sausages in the fridge) So it’s over then?

Me: What’s over?

The Boyfriend:  No meat week.

Me: excuse me?

The Boyfriend: Yeah – I’ve been craving a bacon sandwich all week, and I've realised it’s because we’ve had vegetarian food all week.

Me: Come on, that lentil curry was lovely.

The Boyfriend: Oh of course. Just not as lovely as say – a chicken curry.

Me: Love, you had black pudding yesterday.

The Boyfriend: So I did.

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If I had a hammer.

Lounging in the bedroom, front door bangs with the wind.

Me: Oh, don’t worry it’s just the burglars.

The Boyfriend: Well if it is, I've got protection.

Me: What?

The Boyfriend: Yeh, the other night I thought I heard someone breaking in, so I got a hammer – it’s under the bed.

Me: Right.

The Boyfriend: I’ll show you. (reaches under bed and produces hammer.)

The Boyfriend:  But don’t worry – I put some tacs down there too – so if ever anything happens and I have to use it, we can just say that I’d been hanging pictures.

Me: That’s alright then.

The things we do

 I have signed up for boot camp. This is wholeheartedly out of character for 3 main reasons.

1.       I do not like being told what to do.

2.       I do not like being shouted at.

3.       I do not agree with group punishment.

And group punishment this is. We assemble in a local park. White van men yell helpful encouragement such as ‘left-right-left right’ through their windows as they drive past. We run, squat, lunge and burpee – all hideously painful torture techniques designed to make women realise that the perfect body is definitely not worth this level of effort.

We leap up and down. I watch women’s bottoms wobble furiously and jump higher. Because it is damp, we are inadvertently ‘bringing up the worms’ in a kind of mad exercise worm -dance.

We must now ‘drop and give him 20.’ I am horrified that I am paying good money to be given this kind of instruction, but not quite as horrified as when I find I have my hands and face in wormy wet grass.

I am now rolling around in mud. Actually rolling - as I do a press up, and then flail around on the ground until repeating. My hoodie has grass stains on the elbows. I am inhaling grass and wondering if we have any Vanish stain remover left under the sink.

Oh shit, I’m going to be sick.

That would be really embarrassing. Luckily someone has already thrown up by the tree. But she is hard-core and has now resumed the jumping squat. I would have to go home, and never return.

I am not sick.

I do not like burpees. No-one has ever looked back on their life and thought ‘I wish I’d done more burpees.’ I think wars might have started over enforced burpees.

And then it is over. I limp home – damp, yet victorious.

I walk in the flat and am so hungry that I eat an entire lump of cheese straight out the fridge. I have walked wet muddy grass all over the carpet and created a damp patch from my large wet bottom on the sofa.

If only I had energy left to clean.

Email is evil

Last week I attended a talk by Tom Chatfied, on ‘How to Thrive in the Digital Age.’ It was part of an event by the School of Life. You should check it out – I’ve put the web address at the bottom – but for now, back to the point, this talk by Tom Chatfield.

One of Tom’s throwaway comments was, ‘I’m not saying email is evil – although I could make a pretty good case for it.”

And it’s got me thinking.

Email. Bloody email. Let me check my email. Email me. Did you get my email? The sender of my email wants a read receipt to prove I read it. This email has a red flag and has been deemed urgent. Your inbox is almost full. 

Have you ever asked yourself: what does email want? This might sound like a silly question; email - after all  - is not a thinking sentient being with needs or wants? Or is it?

The conclusion I have reached is quite simple: EMAIL WANTS YOU TO SEND MORE EMAIL.

Reply. Copy everyone in. Forward. Blind copy. (naughty) Reply to the reply. Empty your inbox – only to fill up everyone else’s. Why phone? It takes five seconds to accomplish in an e-mail something that takes minutes on the phone. Shun conversing – who needs words like hello and goodbye or to have to pretend to have some semblance of interest in the person on the other end of the line?

No me neither.

Suggest a lunch date? I’ll need an email to confirm that invitation. Thank you very much.

I have 112 unanswered e-mail messages. Every time I start to reply to one a new e-mail icon bobs up and down and I’m compelled to check whether anything good or interesting has arrived. It hasn’t. 

I replace conversation with smiley faces which express my emotions in dots and brackets. I accidentally send a smiley face to a colleague. I fail to respond to a red flag.

Sorry, but Rachel is offline and will not be responding to her emails. She has concluded they are evil.

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The School of Life have a website http://www.theschooloflife.com/

I’m sure they also have an email address, but you’ll have to find that out for yourself.