Sunday 9 November 2008

Putting off housework

Even though it's Sunday (shouldn't it be a day of rest?) I'll have to get off my fat bottom soon and declare war on clutter. My living room is a tip and our local vegan/veggie group descends on us tomorrow. Some time towards the end of last December when discussing the next 'Programme of Events' it seemed a good idea to show willing and suggest a quiz night at our place. Not until November though. Aeons away. Forget about it for now.

Ping! A message sneaked into my computer: an invitation via Facebook (yes, the group is on Facebook now) to a quiz night at Ian and Jean's. Panic Stage Two. What's gone wrong with time? Months are whizzing by. So they're coming tomorrow. Here. To sit (Oh God, not enough seats or floor space) in our small (and at present embarrassingly untidy) living room.

Don't get me wrong. It's great having people round. They're a lovely bunch. But I've been neglecting housework even more than usual lately. Ian is going to write out some quiz questions and make a (vegan of course) cheesecake. And me? Well, I'd better stop procrastinating (I like that word), hadn't I? Frame yourself, Jean.

'Frame yourself'. That phrase appeared somewhere in my manuscript and my copy-editor circled it and wrote above it, 'Meaning?' She'd obviously never heard of it. I thought everyone knew what it meant. But I divert . . .

Why can't I be like the people who always have impeccably neat houses, even when visitors drop in unexpectedly? Does an untidy room denote an untidy mind, as my dad used to say (though I don't remember him doing much in the way of housework)?

Even my desk, my sacred place for writing, is usually full of clutter, where papers, books, coasters, a cup with cold coffee dregs in the bottom and (wait for it) a packet of bunion relief pads all vie for space at my elbow. Not now though. I've shifted my stuff from the side of my computer, and it looks so neat and empty. It's unnerving.

1 comment:

Karen said...

"Frame yourself" was often said in our house when I was growing up (not always directed at me I hasten to add!) and I wondered if it was a Northern phrase because when I used it once - being among soft southerners these days - everyone looked at me like I'd gone mad!

Hope the visit went well in the end :o)