so i’m still wearing my shoes. aha, you think. i’ve got her number now. she’s an obsessive/compulsive shoe fetishist with a penchant for booze and an all-consuming lust for sensory satisfaction.

to which i would reply: you say that like it’s a bad thing.

i’m in the middle of cleaning my apartment. i mean really cleaning. and there’s nothing like a deep-scrubbing-wall-washing-carpet-treating kind of cleaning to illuminate you to yourself.

redundant?  unnecessary?  perhaps. perhaps. but the insight gained is always intriguing.

for example:

1. i am the possessor of more candles than i could burn in three lifetimes. shocking only in the fact that i’ve made a concerted effort to not buy any more, but they somehow keep appearing.

2. i am way more anal-retentive than i had previously thought (i caught myself categorizing the books on my shelf by title, color, size and genre all at the same time for chrissake). shocking only in the fact that anyone who’s ridden in my car of late would disagree about my organizational abilities.

3. i have the disturbing tendency to save every piece of paper i come across. mail i received five years ago, scraps with some forgotten person’s phone number, assembly instructions for something i no longer own, and on and on and on. not shocking at all. the written word is precious, even if it’s only informing me that i’ve been pre-approved.

i find myself gleefully exhausted after each cleaning project, flush with success as i get closer to my goal.

finding out the true color of my carpet, or finding myself?

it’s all in there somewhere, and i’ve got my rubber gloves on.

i’m goin’ back in.