"I Clean My Room!"

Somewhere in the endless black chasm where my assorted hang-ups and neuroses fester like gnats on a knee scab lies a deep-seated aversion to keeping my room clean. It can be a mountain range of urban detritus, as long as there remains a little island on the bed for myself and my ‘puter, I’m golden.

My boyfriend is five years my junior (Cougar Town, party of me!).  There have been a few snits in which I’ve pulled the age card, and he’d counter with, “well, at least I’m old enough to know to put my laundry away.”

“Oh yeah, well you’re a poopy butt who makes poops with your butt, so there!”

Like most of the other twenty-and-thirtysomethings living in arrested development, I blame my parents’ divorce. When I was little, I kept my room pretty clean. It was my library, my art studio, my TV room and my playtime puppet theatre where I would simulate Sapphic heavy petting with Barbie and her Rockers after their sweet gig. At 13, when they split--my parents, not Barbie and her band. They’re still going strong--my dad left the house in Kansas City’s Brookside neighborhood where we grew up and got a bachelor-pad rental on the West Plaza. There was a place upstairs with room for a bed for my brother Justin, and a fold-out couch in the living room for my sister Katie and me to sleep when we visited on the weekends, but I had no place to put my Nirvana posters or my books and most importantly, no privacy. Soon after Dad moved to the Plaza, Mom ditched the Brookside home to move in with her boyfriend, Stephen, leaving the place in total disarray, dilapidated and full of dirty laundry (much like the kind I’m airing out right now). Unfortunately for Mom and Stephen, we kids had to go with her, although I would’ve preferred to stay in my messy, busted house without her. At this point in my life her physical absence wouldn’t have been all that felt. But enough about that. I’ll save the sob stories for my therapist, promise.

Stephen was such a turd. He made my brother and sister and I feel wholly unwelcome in his rinky dink house, which was fine because we didn’t want to be there anyway. My six year-old sister and I shared a full bed in a sterile room with ugly French Country blue-and-mauve wallpaper. We were discouraged from making it our own. This and a lot of other things made me completely miserable as a kid, but I do take comfort in knowing that Stephen’s dead now. Just kidding. I mean, he’s totally dead, but I don’t take comfort in knowing that.  I’m not that big of a vindictive Scorpio asshole, Jaysus.

Anyway. Being smack dab in the middle of my formative years and living between two places where I had no place of my own left me feeling transient. It’s a feeling that’s stayed with me ever since. In my apartments I have had as an adult, I’ve taken no pains to make them homey. There’s been some where I never even bothered to unpack. But I’m working on it. I recognize that there is a feeling of pride to coming home to a place that doesn’t look like an active volcano that shoots lava made of shoes and magazines. I bought some art for the walls. I’ve started this novel exercise where after I do my laundry I put it away in drawers. There’s no semblance of organization or anything, but I’ll get there.

A big part of growing up means getting over your crybaby upbringing. Everyone had a shitty childhood. If you didn’t you are boring and you‘ll never be a good writer or artist or alcoholic former child star. It’s science!