Zombie-Cleaning
Knock on wood, I haven’t been plagued (yet) by pregnancy symptoms. The only exception is occasional extreme exhaustion. It hits me all of a sudden—sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the early evening—and it really knocks me out. Lately, when the exhaustion hits me at night, it’s been compounded with an unusual symptom I haven’t read about in any of my pregnancy books: a sudden, clear-eyed realization that one’s apartment is a rat’s nest of clutter and mess, and an attendant compulsion to clean it up immediately.
Wednesday night, we returned late from our foray into Grass Valley, and I was exhausted. Zombie-like wouldn’t be an overstatement. Andrew was calmly typing at the computer while I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. But when I left the bathroom and walked into the dining room, I saw it—piles of newspapers on the coffee table, and a dining table covered in mail, rubber bands from the newspaper, notes, printouts of apartments, and much, much more. Andrew had about ten pairs of shoes strewn around the apartment. “It’s…it’s a mess,” I suddenly said. “This apartment—it’s a disaster. I can’t stand it! This is awful! When I wake up in the morning and try to read the paper—“ –here I mimed what would happen when I opened up a newspaper, an avalanche of things tumbling to the floor.
“Leave it,” Andrew said mildly. “I’ll pick everything up.”
But I couldn’t leave it. Andrew’s been doing the brunt of the cleaning-up and dish-washing at night now that I’m unconscious by 10pm, and I (sometimes) feel bad about it. And so I began maniacally cleaning—zombie-cleaning. And then I went to bed.
One additional note—I, proudly known as being highly organized, managed to lead us on our Grass Valley excursion with only one out of three street addresses at hand. I’d just…forgotten to find out the addresses of the other places we were supposed to visit. Our GPS and a well-timed phone call from a realtor saved us, but wow. What is wrong with me?
Wednesday night, we returned late from our foray into Grass Valley, and I was exhausted. Zombie-like wouldn’t be an overstatement. Andrew was calmly typing at the computer while I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. But when I left the bathroom and walked into the dining room, I saw it—piles of newspapers on the coffee table, and a dining table covered in mail, rubber bands from the newspaper, notes, printouts of apartments, and much, much more. Andrew had about ten pairs of shoes strewn around the apartment. “It’s…it’s a mess,” I suddenly said. “This apartment—it’s a disaster. I can’t stand it! This is awful! When I wake up in the morning and try to read the paper—“ –here I mimed what would happen when I opened up a newspaper, an avalanche of things tumbling to the floor.
“Leave it,” Andrew said mildly. “I’ll pick everything up.”
But I couldn’t leave it. Andrew’s been doing the brunt of the cleaning-up and dish-washing at night now that I’m unconscious by 10pm, and I (sometimes) feel bad about it. And so I began maniacally cleaning—zombie-cleaning. And then I went to bed.
One additional note—I, proudly known as being highly organized, managed to lead us on our Grass Valley excursion with only one out of three street addresses at hand. I’d just…forgotten to find out the addresses of the other places we were supposed to visit. Our GPS and a well-timed phone call from a realtor saved us, but wow. What is wrong with me?
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