I woke up this morning feeling confident about writing some kind of coherent, organized blog post that might both cleverly reflect on the world a little as well as shed a little more light onto who I am.  I also decided that instead of posting a million times when I keep thinking of something "interesting" to add, I could just go and EDIT the already existent post.  It's kind of pathetic that it's taken me…7 years to make that connection.

Then, I rolled over onto my side, had stabbing pains on the lower left side of my abdomen, and immediately thought that I probably had a burst appendix and was going to die.  My first thought was, "I JUST STARTED A NEW JOB I CAN'T DIE OR HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL OR I WON'T HAVE A JOB ANYMORE."  Then, I rolled over onto my other side and the pain sort of went away, so I'm thinking I'm probably okay.  After that happened, I was pleased to see that I'd beaten my alarm by twenty seconds, so I lay on my inflatable mattress (which is what I sleep on because I don't have a bed yet, and I might actually not ever have a bed here) and waited.  Somehow, despite expecting my alarm to go off, when it finally did twenty seconds later, I wanted to stab things.  But, I didn't.  I turned it off and shuffled into the bathroom with my face wash and toothbrush.  Barefoot.

I should have put my flip-flops on, though.  I'm in a constant battle with our bathroom.  You see, our apartment has TWO bathrooms, but thanks to maintenance's ineptitude, we are only allowed to shower in ONE of those bathrooms: mine.  It's hard enough to keep things neat and clean when three people are sharing a bathroom, but turn that three into a five and walking into the bathroom is like walking into a third world country and realizing that you are there and that you also don't have a way back to civilization.

I usually break down and clean like the world is going to end if I don't clean the bathroom Right That Second.  We have these super awesome yellow rubber gloves that we keep under the sink.  Until I moved here, I'd never had yellow gloves to wear while I was cleaning, and when I found them next to the can of Scrubbing Bubbles it was like I'd discovered Superman's spare costume in my apartment.  I was excited.  Now, whenever I clean, I pull on those super awesome yellow rubber gloves and feel like I am unstoppable and also like no dirt anywhere can get to me.  It makes cleaning so much more rewarding.

Anyway, there comes a point with respect to our bathroom when it's just about impossible to rationalize walking into the room sans footwear.  This is gross.  I start panicking when I see the dirt and grime accumulate.  Like when there are little tumbleweeds of hair curling across the floor.  I freak out.  So that's when I pull on the magical gloves, and grab just about every cleaning solution in sight:

Scrubbing bubbles

409 (which isn't a bathroom cleanser but which is super powerful so I use it anyway)

Some sort of bleach solution designated for tile that is in a spray bottle

Windex

When I finish, I'm usually staggering around from light-headedness.  Anyway, it's totally time to clean the bathroom again.

I'm especially paranoid about everything when I know that people might be coming over.  Like, friends.  When I know friends are potentially going to see the place I inhabit, it's like I'm back in elementary school and it's the first day and I know my clothes don't fit right and everyone is probably going to judge me for it.  I get really self-conscious.  I start thinking that they're going to outwardly be all, "Oh, this is such a nice place!" but inwardly are going to be cringing and going, "Oh my god, I never knew she was so dirty, what is wrong with her?!  Did I remember to bring my hand sanitizer?"  And it really doesn't help that we have MFing holes in our walls that are covered with chunks of ripped-up cardboard, and carpet in the hallway that is a) filthy, b) missing its padding, and c) unattached to the other carpet/floor and is rolling up on the edges (as a side note, my dad feels that there may be asbestos rattling around in tile form under the carpet).  So our apartment is going to look like a wreck even IF it also happens to be spotless.  I work very hard to get every surface and patch of tile or linoleum scrubbed, so that if curious (concerned) guests start inspecting things surreptitiously, they can be comforted by the fact that even though things LOOK bad, they are actually clean.  ...Thank goodness for the gloves.

UPDATE: John and I got into an email...disagreement today and I sent him this to show him that I meant business with my threats:

Then he sent me this next picture and I thought he was trying to appease me, but it turns out that he'd actually taken it earlier and had only just remembered - perhaps reminded by my blue shirt.  Or my general weirdness as demonstrated in my picture.  Because he also thinks my school is weird.  Partially because the dining halls are forced to put signs on the toasters telling people NOT to stick entire rolls in them because the rolls WILL CATCH ON FIRE.  The only reason we had the signs was because so many people were catching rolls on fire.  Which is sad.

The picture is of the Blue Bus that runs between Bryn Mawr and Haverford.  As you can see, John took it at the stoplight through the windshield of his car for me. He took it earlier in the day, and even though he didn't take it right in the midst of our...disagreement as a way to appease my indignation, the fact that he was thinking of me enough ithis morning to prompt him to take a picture fixed things anyway.