The Most Boring Person on Earth

Hello!

Remember when I used to go skinny dipping on the weekends?  Or fly to San Diego for spur of the moment trips?  Remember when I used to go to France?  Or stay in bed all day only to go to cool parties on downtown rooftops? 

Yeah I don't do that anymore.

Instead?

I clean.

My name is SSG and I'm a springcleanaholic.

(Hi SSG!)

I feel bad for anyone who has asked me what I did over the past few weekends.  Because all I've done is um, clean.  

And I tell anyone who will listen about the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser or my new Hoover Steam Vac.  Or how you can put baking soda and warm water on just about anything and it will magically disappear. 

I caught an episode of 30 Rock a couple of weeks ago where Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon, had just gone shopping at a Container Store.  She was waxing poetic about all of the containers she bought to organize her shoes and store her keys and sort her mail when she looked up to the sky and said "This is IT.  I'm going to become WONDERFUL!"

And then Liz Lemon gets hit by a bike and shows up to her morning meeting saying she has had it with "decorganizing."

I looked around to see if the writers of 30 Rock had hunkered down in my living room to take notes on the MANIACAL cleaning burst of energy that is A FLOWIN' in Chez SSG.  Because I'm pretty sure I've uttered that very sentence at some point over the past few weeks.

Peeps, we're not talking about just your average dusting or vacuuming.  We're talking about taking the shower curtain down and washing not only it, but the shower curtain liner too.  And while that's swishing away in the washer SSG is standing on the edge of her tub taking down the shower curtain hook thingies and dusting those off too.  

We're talking about removing ALL of the furniture from the living room, taking off the covers over the couch cushions and washing them while Mr. Clean Erasing walls, baseboards, light switch covers and even Fisher as she runs for cover.  

We're talking about steam cleaning the carpets, dusting the blinds rung by rung, painting windowsills and washing windows.

We're talking about getting financial records in order and putting major appliance manuals in one place.  

We're talking about filing YEARS worth of article clippings and recipes into sheet protectors and putting then in binders BY SEASON.

Every once and a while I'll pass a mirror and ask "WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ME?!"  But then I'll notice a spot on the mirror and get busy cleaning.

Saturday night I got hit by the metaphorical 30 Rock bike.  It happened right after I moved all the furniture back into the living room and was about to move all of the furniture out of the dining room and start cleaning those carpets at 7 p.m.  You know, the hour most people are starting to think about getting in the shower to go out on a Saturday night.  

But not SSG.  She was bound and determined to clean carpets and dust the liquor cabinet and chandelier and if there was time, start thinking about how to organize her kitchen (the BANE of SSG's very existence.)  

And that's when every cell in SSG's body screamed "Would you STOP?!  Go get a beer or watch Real Housewives of New York or read an US Weekly or something shallow you CRAZY BITCH!  Aren't you supposed to be finding a boyfriend or something GAH!"

I crawled up the stairs and into the shower barely managing to put on pair of my favorite pajamas before nestling into freshly washed white sheets and my cherry blossom duvet cover that I bring out every spring.  I sat up against a mess of down pillows and finished a novel before falling asleep to one of my favorite songs, Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard.

I stayed in my jammies until Sunday afternoon--drinking coffee and watching Meet the Press and Face the Nation.  While flipping through a magazine I realized I was hungry.  Within an hour I was back from the grocery store and standing, barefoot in my kitchen, sauteing leeks for a perfect springtime pea soup with fresh mint.  Fisher was laying on the kitchen floor, college basketball was on in the living room and my house was buzzing with energy that doesn't come from cleaning, but from being so present in a moment that you can't imagine being anywhere else.

Perhaps there is something to this decorganizing after all.