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Clean Up

I was watching Oprah the other day--part of a week long series, Oprah's clean up your messy house--with Peter Walsh and Candace Olsen. They made surprise stops at a few people's apartments in NYC and got them cleaned up, tidied and organized.

Now this kills me. Your every bedroom surface is covered with clothes. Your kitchen is a germ infested pile of dirty dishes and over flowing garbage. The refrigerator is growing fuzzy green phosphoescent slime. And someone, a professional organizer, is needed to tell you to do laundry, fold/hang up your clothes, take out the garbage, wash dishes and clean the fridge. It's not that I don't know plenty of people who live like that, and it's certainly not that I haven't experienced the overwhelming inertia of life's clutter gotten out of control. (For me, at least, it's called depression and prozac helps alot.) It is, partly, that I wish I had had the smarts to see a niche for the professional organizer and develop that career path, but also that I don't understand the willingness to let TV cameras into the house to expose to the world one's inability to cope.

Okay, I know. Reality television is all the rage as we sink to the lowest common denominator. Messy houses are even less offensive than bachelors looking for true love, shallow housewives, trading spouses. (ICK!)

And, okay, maybe we are a tad on the obsessive side. Books on my shelves are alphabetical by author, then by title if we have multiple books by a favorite author.
Garden books all together, history books all together, cook books all together, of course. But it is definitely not OCD--we haven't instituted the Dewey decimal system.

Hmmm...could be it's a lot about kicking myself for not being bold enough to turn my "talents" into a career. I actually stopped watching Oprah for a period af time after she had Martha Stewart on a segment. Martha was showing people how to fold sheets. FOLD SHEETS! The woman is a multi industry mogul because she knows how to fold sheets. I know how to fold sheets and towels, too. My linen closet is as neat as a pin. I refold the sheets in our rental house within the first day of arrival. (Yes, obsessive, NOT cumpulsive.)

Here's the thing...I would love for the "clean up your messy house" crew to come to my home for a redo. It's not that my house is messy or out-of-control disorganized, but I would love to have all the matching containers, color coordinated "zones," and a general spruce up as a gift from Miss Oprah. Seriously, where's the reward for a good life??

NOTE: Please do not think I in anyway mean to denigrate sufferers of OCD. It is a terrible condition whose victims suffer immensely.
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