i am my own robot butler

sodamnrelatable:

I feel like I look at people like this:

But I really end up looking like this:

i think this might be true. i might even look worse than the guy in the bottom photo. Apparently I make an “angry” face when I am thinking. And since I am thinking about 99% of my waking time……sigh.

(via howtobreatheunderwater)

It’s time i got back to getting shit done. I’ve been miserable and angsty and cranky with the humidity and the futility of life. but living in this clutterfuck isn’t helping any, and I can actually do something about THAT, unlike all the angst at the pit of vipers where i work.

so, what needs doing this weekend?

• send chapter draft to committee member
• bank to deposit check
• grocery shopping, and try to get something that isn’t made of bread
• laundry (put it away!)
• post office: packages and bills!
• maybe do a 20/10 in the livingroom?
• start getting the drawers put back together in the study
• sweep upstairs hall
• vacuum upstairs where diatomaceous earth is

it’s a lot. i’m tired, because I haven’t been sleeping well or much, and because today is grey and chilly, and because sleeping is fun. going out - to the store, the bank, the post office - does not appeal at all, but it must happen today, because the post office is closed on sunday.

A 20-minute bout in the living room would do wonders.

the drawers in the study won’t be a big chore, either, especially since I get to line them with pretty paper.

vacuuming is going to be ugly; the cat terror alert will be at level freak-the-fuck-out-RED. and the foster kittens who are already constantly at that level will probably crank it up even more and discover a new color of fear on the spectrum.

however.

bits and pieces, 20 minutes here and there, and progress will happen. i need to remember this for my dissertation, as well.

all right. to business. get those packages ready to ship, then get your ass in gear.

Now, I know this sculpture is from Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings. And that is great: it’s a fantastic book and a charming sculpture and I am happy it exists.

But I also think it’s a pretty great representation of Unfuck Your Habitat, especially in this photo, where the Lead MomDuck gleams in the sunlight, and the string of wayward ducks emerges from the shadows.

Because really, with all the cleaning and melamine-foam Sorcery and discovering what your flooring really looks like and getting Cat Pee problems solved and 20/10ing your way to happiness - well, I’ll embrace the gross cliche and say it IS like stepping into the sunlight. Sunlight that doesn’t reveal all the crap you failed to tidy up, but instead reveals that stray cup or unfolded towel that you no longer ignore, but put in its proper place before going off to be awesome someplace in your unfucked home.

Yeah. Make way for unfucked ducks.

For a whole lot of reasons, some much better than others, I’ve been in a state of depression-induced inertia. I stare at the computer, I eat iced animals, I stare at the computer, I eat iced animals, I think about how bad it is to do nothing but stare at the computer and eat iced animals.  As you do.

But today!

I looked at my kitchen the other day, really looked, through the invisibility cloak of crap that surrounds my entire house. And I thought: this is a disgrace and Ufyh says there’s no reason why I can’t do a little to unfuck this.

Yes, a can of spray paint and a lint roller and my mail andRailseaand a towel, all parked on my enormous stove. Tony the Tiger leers from the lower right corner, wondering why I’m saving a box with roughly 1/8 cup of crumbled month-old froster flakes.

Because I wanted to use my stove to make mac & cheese, and I knew I’d keep unfucking while the water boiled, etc, I set my microwave timer for 15 minutes. I couldn’t find my actual timer, the one that rings and gives me heart palpitations at its loudness.

Fifteen minutes later, this is what it looked like. And hey, there’s my timer!!!

So I put on a pot of water to boil, then to cook my mac & cheese, and carried on. Maybe 15 minutes later:

Still messy, sure. Butusable! I can get to the burners without risking a massive fire. No more cans of spray paint. Lint roller’s still there, but my kitchen door (at the left edge of this photo) is my main entrance and exit, and I often need to rollerbrush myself before I go out the door.

I did another 20 of dishwashing this evening. I had done a mass of dishes yesterday, and when I brought today’s dishes down to the kitchen, I thought: “don’t just add these to the pile - soon it’ll be icky and gross and unmanageable.”  So I did 20 minutes of dishwashing, accompanied by the shrill timer and some old school music: The Cure, Annie Lennox (Eurythmics era), Cocteau Twins.

Tomorrow, I take my car to the carshop to try to get my driver side window fixed - it’s rolled down and the mechanism for rolling it back up (it’s manual, not automatic) is broken. Has been broken for over two weeks. During which time I stared at the computer and ate iced animals.

Some unfuckitude is going on here, and it feels good. Maybe I’ll be able to kick this bout of de-functionalizing depression soon, and actually use my remaining weeks of summer to good purpose. (ie, hi dissertation! and how about going back to swimmy class?)