In Which Poppy Goes Down for the Third Time.

I like to think I write well. But I don't think I write particularly honestly. You'd never guess it, but I constantly re-edit my blog entries. Computers give me on-the-spot editing possibilities, and I use them to hedge, adjust, re-think, change the order of my words, delete the swear words, and otherwise be a lot more tactful than I really am.

But sometimes ... I JUST HAVE TO FUCKING VENT. For example, this morning I had a new team of cleaning goddesses ladies coming. For the first time in almost a year, someone else was going to clean my house. So I spent over two hours putting things away. After all, they deserved to be able to FIND THE FUCKING RUGS.

But to be honest (there's that word again) there was no "away" to put things. I was stuffing my daughter's fucking OBSCENE OVERLOAD of stupid, mass-produced, made-in-China toys into grocery bags and then shoving them into her closet. When the closet was full, I brought a few bags down to the basement.

The basement is still strewn with toys from my FUCKING Halloween party. And there's no space to put those toys away. Every shelf is FUCKING full.

And all these toys--can't be played with. If you actually tried to play with them, something crucially important will be missing. There'll be a missing Lego piece, or a piece of Monopoly money, or a die, or a Bratz foot, or a Bionicle, or a video game cartridge, or a puzzle piece, or a FUCKING Nintendo stylus that is not where it's supposed to be. Which makes all these game boxes so many sarcophagi. How can you play Twister without the spinner?

I think about taking it all and giving it away to the rummage sale. I think about eBaying things. I think about giving everything away to the poor and joining a nunnery. I think about explaining calmly to my children that even though we live in a consumer society, we don't actually have to accumulate so much FUCKING crap.

But who am I to FUCKING talk? I can't get mad at my kids; look at my bedroom. I have something like 30 bottles of perfume; half of my jewelry stacked in the gift boxes on my dresser because the jewelry box is full. Books are stacked up on the floor and lined up bookcase-style against the wall. I have so many shoes I can't remember what I own. I have two closets stuffed full of clothes--in three dress sizes. My bathroom is so full of makeup, shower gel, hair goo, and body cream that the tubs and bottles are lined up on the windowsill. And we won't even talk about my study, with its detritus of abandoned doctoral dissertation and waist-high pile of backed up filing.

I think about what it will take to de-clutter this house, and arson is starting to look like a viable alternative.

You know what? At the very least? I think it's time to put away the Christmas knick-knacks. And take down the tree. So I can breathe again.