Ramblings and perhaps a short form book review.

I was super excited to sit down at my completely clean and clear desk in order to make motions toward revisiting this blog, but then I was required to unpack everything from my bag in order to find the insurance card for my car. now my desk is a little bit of a huge hazard, and I am trying to ignore it. If I stop and clean it all up, I’ll lose all my blog writing mojo.

And with that, the timer goes off and I have to get up and hang clothes that are not allowed to be fully dried. Hence my usual lack of desire to even try and write something, as I will be interrupted by something.

I think I would enjoy being  1950s housewife more if I got dressed and prettied up before my domestic duties. Instead I hastily throw on a sports bra under my pajama top and go about my chores looking as if I just rolled out of bed. Sometimes I don’t even brush my teeth, because what’s the point if you’re sucking down coffee all morning? I also think being a 1950s housewife would be easier if I felt like I had some sort of purpose to my day/week/life. The rational side of me says there’s no point to making up a daily schedule of what needs to be done and when it needs to be done, just like I think it’s pointless to get all showered and dressed just to get mucked up while cleaning the apartment. The side of me that wants me to embrace the 1950s housewife says I would feel more satisfied with what I was doing if I did it right.

I’d also be more satisfied being a 1050s housewife if I was getting paid.

Money is a big issue right now, which is why I can’t just skip out to the grocery store and do some grocery shopping and feel like I might not have changed the world or done anything important today, but at least I got the milk we’ve been needing since Wednesday. (Yep, we’ve been without cereal since Wednesday. I don’t know how we’ve survived, to be quite frank with you.) Since I don’t seem to be able to get a real job and am barely making a hundred dollars a week at the job I have (true story: I’ve gone two weeks now not breaking a hundred because my incompetent boss can’t seem to schedule me for more than ten hours a week), spending my free time around the house has become less about being a fabulous 1950s housewife and more about being depressed over sucking at life and being poor.

Alas.

Pajiba is doing another Cannonball Read, this time 52 books in a year (last year it was a hundred books in a year, clearly they’ve begun to see reason). I didn’t sign up, although I probably should have, but I might play along at home. I’m going to cheat, though, and count my first book as the one I just finished, even though the Cannonball Read doesn’t really start until the first of November (also the starting date of NaNoWriMo, another thing I’m thinking about doing but ultimately won’t). Part of the Cannonball Read is to write reviews of each book, and since I have a blog that I don’t use for anything particularly enlightening, I shall write short form reviews for the books I read, until I lose interest.

Book #1: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I commit vacuum cleaner sin OR Why I’d make a lousy wife.

I’m not the best at vacuuming. I do enjoy spelling vacuum, which is why I’m always so inspired to write about it after I finish, but I think when it all comes down to it I’m just plain lousy at this part of domesticity.

The headlight on my vacuum has died, so no more vacuuming in the dark. I’m not really sure why vacuums have headlights, and while I could look it up on Wikipedia or use The Google, I’m just going to pretend it’s so you can vacuum in conditions of low light. I never really do any cleaning in conditions of low light, nevertheless the dark, but I still feel slightly inadequate that there isn’t a trusty headlight shining ahead of me as I plow through the apartment behind my vacuum. I also accidentally vacuumed over some slightly moist carpet that I had just cleaned after a puppy pee accident, and the vacuum sucked up the Resolve rug cleaner and puppy pee smell. Since then the vacuum has left a peculiar odor when it works, except now it’s much more just a bad smell than the distinct mix of Resolve and urine it was before. I normally have to light a Febreze candle in order to combat the vacuum smell, a shame since I used to enjoy the scent of a freshly vacuumed carpet.

My main problem is the fact I commit vacuum cleaner sins. I’m constantly in need of a new bag for my vacuum. I tend to forget to check it or schedule a change, and then it goes too far and the vacuum is spitting out more dust than it’s sucking in, but I won’t have a bag because if you don’t regularly change them you don’t remember to buy them at Target. I’m pretty sure 80% of my vacuuming really isn’t doing anything but putting vacuum marks on the carpet, but then I check the bag so rarely I can’t even guesstimate that percentage semi-correctly. I vacuum on the linoleum, and not just the little patch of it in front of my door (put there by the apartment people in an attempt to keep the carpets clean, but news flash, apartment people: it doesn’t work) that’s surrounded by carpet and hard to not vacuum over. I do my kitchen floor and my bathroom floor, usually out of pure laziness (and the fact the puppy can’t keep from barking hysterically at any sort of Swifer product I try to use in those areas). I jam the vacuum under things it really doesn’t fit under (like the bottom of the counters in the kitchen), get it suck, then yank it out. I do a little thing I like to call Heavy Lifting, where I vacuum my bathroom rugs by lifting the vacuum up in the air, setting it in the center of the tiny bathroom rug, and pushing it off. I do this in all directions until I think the rug is clean. I hold the vacuum up in the air while standing on my coffee table or bed in order to get the hose to reach the ceiling fan (extendable my ass). I also have left it on and sitting in one spot, which I’m pretty sure isn’t appropriate.

I honestly believe that if I had a Dyson, I wouldn’t commit vacuum sins. Of course that’s a complete lie, but the million dollar price tag of every Dyson model is probably going to prevent me from finding out. When I thought the vacuum might be dying (before my dad explained a dead headlight is nothing more than a dead headlight and doesn’t necessitate repair or replacement of the vacuum itself), I was window shopping at Target and deciding on the vacuum which had the picture of the adorable fluffy dog on the box. I don’t really know who makes that vacuum or what it does, but the dog was super cute. Not as cute as the puppy, but still, really cute.

The carpet in this apartment is pretty rotten. I think I have a lot of vacuum anger because of the carpet. Granted, I didn’t ever have a dog before this apartment, and dogs may just be carpet destroyers, but this is a little ridiculous. Stains magically appear in places where it’s absolutely illogical for stains to occur. The wear from walking around is very bad, something I noticed when I rearranged my bedroom and the new walking paths were almost immediately beaten down like I’d been walking on that spot for fifty years. I’m itching to call for carpet cleaning, but as it’s not an absolute necessity I’m trying to hold off. It’s embarrassing, though, because I don’t want people to think I’m dirty. I’m not. I’m just bad at vacuuming. And I’m bad at owning carpet.

I’m not sure, but this really could be a deal breaker if some guy decides he wants me for a wife. Maybe that’s why Ex-Boyfriend-Kurt left. Hmmm.

(And yes, I did just vacuum my apartment at 9:30 at night. My downstairs neighbors can suck it.)