ongoing im conversations: partial antidote to earlier negativity

[dragonlady7]

I sort of miss having all that time spent at my computer, just talking to people on IM as I somehow passed tremendous quantities of time not doing anything but at the end of the day had written twenty thousand words. God... A question: Does it make it easier or harder to endure a dumb pay-the-bills job if you know precisely what it is that you love to do?

To leopard_lady, I am talking about shitty jobs. Poor girl is sick today because at work the day before yesterday the heat wasn't working properly and she spent eight hours getting blasted with 18-degree (Fahrenheit, people) gusts from the open door, and now she has a terrible cold. (She was already sick but getting better.) So she's looking up working conditions on the NYS Dep't of Labor website (look under the FAQ), and is submitting resumes to other people.

With Corey, I'm talking about doing laundry.
One of the biggest improvements in my quality of life since we moved to Buffalo is that there's a laundry room in the basement. What, you say? Out of all the other things that are so much better, you focus on the laundry?

Let me tell you about how I do laundry. First off, I am a Laundry Superhero. I am so totally obsessive-compulsive about what gets washed with what at what temperature at what cycle. And I am a freak about what gets put through the electric dryer and what line-dries. (I would line-dry everything, except socks and towels come out crusty, so...)

And it just brings me... not joy, but a sense of control and harmony in my life, to do my laundry the right way. (Did any of you doubt that I was a Total Freak? Doubt no more.) And also, it bothers me to have one garment that needs washing left out of a load that had room and into which it would have fit correctly (what with temperature and cycle and all). And so I am quite prone to suddenly stripping off a garment that I am currently wearing, just to put it into the right wash load so it will be clean. (The logic that I am then going to have to dirty something else by putting it on because one cannot spend her life naked does not enter into this, and don't you bring that kind of thinking here! Take it back where you found it!)

And then I realize that it's fifty degrees in the basement. So I run shrieking up the stairs because I'm cold, and tear through the house, half-nude, because it's not like the basement steps go right to my dresser. No, I have to go through the kitchen and living room and main hallway to get to my bedroom. So, my flight is visible from every room in the house except the sunporch.

This is why we don't have a roommate. (That and Dave and I can't share a bedroom because he's a grump and I'm a slob.)

Ah... the adventures of Laundry.

I have other things to do and I just want to lie around and eat sponge candy and write a tragic love story. Does that make me a bad person?

But I have to go buy liquor and laundry detergent, and I have an already-written novel to edit. Muh!

Comments

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

Your laundry ritual is actually pretty impressive. My mother-in-law has similar pattern with washing dishes (some things must be done by hand, others must go only on top shelf in dishwasher, still others must be pre-washed... yada). Confusing to someone as ramshackle as me, of course, but also kind of neato in a let's-organize-the-universe sort of way.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

It's the only thing I'm organized about, and it's more frenzied than controlled.

But it's my little way of attempting to take over my world. Also, my little way of making sure my clothes last so i don't have to buy more, because I can't afford more. Ha!

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

Fighters of entropy unite!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Yay!!

It's a losing battle, but somebody's gotta rise up out of apathy to fight it once in a while kinda!