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Posted 24 March, 2007 in life shiz
I think I am officially a grownup, because I’ve begun to derive pleasure from being organized. I’ve always been a bit uptight about having my shit together: By my senior year of high school, I’d learnt to manage my time such that I’d done all my homework in the afternoon and could spend the evening persuading my friends (who usually hadn’t finished theirs) to drink large amounts of tequila with me in the dugout on the baseball field.
Now, though, my anal-retentiveness is reaching new heights. I love filing my papers, and I love it even more when O asks me for a particular document and I can retrieve it in a matter of seconds. I am smugly pleased about having finished our taxes almost a month ahead of schedule. I relish the look of uncluttered surfaces in our house. I get a kick out of paying my credit card bill online before it is due. I’ve even alphabetized the binder where we keep our takeout menus.
I went to the dentist yesterday and got a teeth cleaning. My diligent brushing, flossing and use of various and sundry mouthwashes paid off when the dentist told me my teeth looked great and to keep doing what I was doing. As an Englishwoman, I used to be slightly annoyed when Americans bared their big, shiny white teeth and boasted about never having had fillings, and I couldn’t really see why they thought English people had such terrible teeth. Now I’ve been away for a while, I realize I didn’t often see the worst of it, being that I went to a foo-foo private school where everyone had ridiculously expensive private-practice dentists instead of NHS ones. Now I’m appalled at the dental state of my fellow countrymen; watching shows like Big Brother’s Big Mouth makes me want to jump through the screen and perform impromptu root canals on half the audience. Sure, I’m not going to go get big white horse teeth like Hilary Duff, but I’m much more conscientious about my teeth than I used to be. So it feels good to have gotten my six-month cleaning; every time I walked by a mirror yesterday, I gave it a big monkey-style grin, just so I could admire every one of my gleaming white teeth. Then I opened iCal and checked “Dental Appointment” off my Things-To-Do list with a flourish.
I already went for my annual physical, almost exactly a year after I had my last one. I took pleasure in being poked and prodded and made to squeeze a small rubber toy in the shape of a brain while getting my blood taken. I even dutifully downed three glasses of water before my appointment, so that my veins would be nice and hydrated, and so that I would be able to overachieve in the pee test. Then I went home and gleefully checked “Annual Physical” off my iCal list. Later that week I found out my cholesterol level was 181, which made me even more insufferably smug.
I get this trait from my dad. I have iCal; he has a yellow notepad on which he writes lists. Sometimes he will call me, and I can tell he is reading from a list of things he must make sure I do, like pay the car insurance I get through him before I ruin his credit rating, or pay my outstanding parking tickets before the authorities put out a warrant for his arrest. He also loves, as I do, to throw things away. “Where’s the TV Guide?” my mum would say when I was growing up, as she searched the kitchen and the living-room for it. Then she’d sigh. “I bet your bloody father’s thrown it away again.” He can’t stand clutter either, and he is ruthless about disposing of it. Haven’t read the Sunday paper by lunchtime? Too late; Dad’s recycled it. Didn’t clean out your room for several years when you left home, despite repeated, polite requests to do so? Well, Dad did, and now if you want anything from it, you’re gonna have to go buy it back from Goodwill. I definitely know which side of the family I got the organizational/no-clutter gene from.
I have to say, though, that when I can harness its power, I’m glad to have that gene: I can sort through a pile of papers, separate the important from the useless, file the former away and recycle the latter in mere minutes. And I’ve only ever regretted throwing a few things away - this awesome pair of green pants from seven years ago, which I probably wouldn’t fit into anyway, now that I eat actual food instead of just ingesting chocolate and cigarettes; all my metal-band T-shirts from when I was 15 (totally Dad’s fault, even though I did leave them in my old room at home till I was, like, 27) and a pair of O’s hair clippers, which I inexplicably disposed of during a particularly rabid cleaning frenzy in college, and which he made me climb into the dumpster to retrieve. I’m still not sure what happened with that last one; in the early days, a red haze sometimes descended upon me, and I would come to my senses hours later to find myself standing in a near-empty room, with only vague recollections of throwing away large pieces of furniture. I have more control now.
I still get far too much pleasure out of throwing things away. If I have too much stuff, it starts to bother me, and soon I will start running around the apartment with large black plastic bags, grabbing anything I can find that I’ve ever felt might not be absolutely necessary to own. Goodwill loves me. Oh, and the paper shredder? Don’t even get me started on my love for the paper shredder. When I am finished with my own stuff, I start on my husband’s. When he hears the words, “Do you use this anymore?” he knows it’s time to hide all his shit. Right now, there is a pile of his CDs, floppy disks, and Jaz disks on a table in the dining room, and it is driving me batshit insane. “Get O to sort thru disks,” is a To-Do on my iCal list, and once I have written something on my iCal list, I cannot rest until it is done. If I didn’t think O would be very upset with me for doing it, I would sweep the entire stack of disks into a Hefty bag, tie it up, and run outside to the trash cans to dispose of it forever, cackling madly all the way.
I am glad I already have a husband, because I am not sure a new guy would want to hang out with a girl whose idea of a good time is filing her household bills in chronological order, and who dreams of one day renting a dumpster so she can throw even more things away at once. Only a man who has loved me for a long time can endure listening to me going on about how cool it would be to own a shredder that could shred CDs, or about how much I love the P-Touch machine. But I’m good for some things: You ever need to find your Hebrew naming certificate? Baby, I know exactly where it is.