I wanted a fairy tale reunion with M. I think we both missed each other. We got a massive fight, instead. Probably, it will all be cool. I’m counting on it all being cool. But, one thing I can’t do when I’m upset is sleep. So, thank god for all the laborers who are giving me the long weekend to try to relax.

Meanwhile, there have been some notes of high-ness. Some good among the bad. Some fairy tale moments among the real world.

For example, I spent Friday desperately trying not to channel Pat. I went to work in an absolute Pat frame of mind. Nervous, expectant, worried. Why? Because whilst I was out of town, M. had the notion to schedule a cleaning service to come in and, well, clean.

It’s a fair concept and compromise to our both have full-time jobs and full, time-consuming interests like writing (of which I have done little) and running (which I think he has done and I never will) and, well, living things that are far fucking more interesting than cleaning one’s living space. I am eager to have the weight off of my domesticity failures with the simpler act of check writing.

But, wholey moley, talk about flashbacks. Some time in the 70s, when Pat recognized the Supermom phenom was bullshit and even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t for her, in between whipping up meals from Peg Bracken’s I Hate to Cook Cookbook, teaching full-time and raising five children, Pat briefly hired what was then called a “cleaning lady.” An individual, a local woman, probably a personal referral, before the service industries blossomed with a thousand services. (I loves me the service economy.)

The anxiety was huge, though. A stranger coming into your home and cleaning your dark corners and dusting your skeletons. And, the failure, the symbolic, unrealistic, stank of inadequacy, because in days that last only 24 hours and the weeks of a mere 7 units, you, the woman, the mother (in Pat’s case) are neglecting the properness of a home, the fortress of your family’s castle.

Will the stranger judge you and your dingy grays?

For me, though, in a new millenium, I was determined to let my true colors fly and not clean the house for the cleaning staff. The prior to arrival ritual of cleaning before the cleaning stranger came was, somehow, coded into my mother’s DNA. I fought it. I fought it hard. (Although, I did load and run the dishwasher (with M.’s dishes from while I was gone mind you) before fleeing our apartment for a day’s paycheck earning.)

The interesting thing is I work with a mix of people from a mix of places with a mix of values and experiences. The vibe I got there when I admitted my anxious eagerness to see my transformed home that evening was a resounding “Hell ya.” If you can write a check, employ someone, earn some time, limit stress it’s a contribution to society well worth the investment.

Maybe it’s because there’s a fair chunk of folks who work with and who have lived in other countries where your need for service is a job and opportunity for someone else.

But, yeah, hell ya, I’s don’t want to scrub and vaccuum and sanitize. And, the Maid Brigade, the company M. found, left mints on the counter. My mom’s cleaning lady never did that.