The strange bit is, I wasn't even really aware it was happening. When the apartment reaches Maximum Filth, I look around, and go "Aaaah!!" and get cleaning. I didn't even stop to realize that it was happening more and more often. Somehow, Maximum Filth got redefined.

It took me a mere two hours Monday to bring my apartment from Maximum Filth to an acceptable level. The whole apartment. That includes the toilet and the dishes and everything, people. Two hours. Which leads me to suspect that it probably wasn't all that dirty in the first place.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's terrific, in fact. It's just when I stop to think about it that I start to wonder if maybe it's scary. Why the hell am I cleaning so much? Didn't I used to be the kind of girl who thought people who cleaned weekly were sad and empty little trolls with nothing better to do? Didn't I used to mock them? "Oooh! An empty Coke can! Oh no! A sock on the floor! It's gonna getcha!"

Wait. I guess I never did that. At least not the mocking part. But I might have. I was a real badass about living in filth, back in the day. I glorified in it.

***

I just got up to look at the apartment. It really is clean. I can't even think of any other cleaning I would like to have done. (Well, maybe those few dishes. And D. was asleep Monday, so the bedroom is still kinda grim. But everything else...) At least I know I'm still not totally hardcore. The bookshelves are still complete chaos. I find them very comforting that way, actually. They give me something I can point to and say, See? See? I'm not one of those freaky neat people.

I'm simply terrible at organizing books. I take them off the shelf, read them, and leave them any old place. The next time I clean, all the books end up stacked in a pile on the bookshelf. Not standing up, of course. Just in loose stacks.

Maybe tomorrow I'll really scare myself, and do something about that...

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