This is my chance to sit down. I’ve been cleaning all day and have mopped myself into the corner with the computer. Now I’m justified in sinking into the large upholstered black office chair that serves as Mission Control for my Web site.

E-Man is coming home after an 11-day business trip in the States, and the clean house is my gift to him. Affectionately known as Felix at home (remember the Odd Couple?), he’s a man who really appreciates a mopped floor, sparkling toilet, and kitchen with visible countertops. He likes clean windows too, but screw it, I don’t love him enough to do them on the same day I’m doing the rest of the house. Let his mistress clean the windows. (Just kidding, honey!)

For a long time I shared his cleanliness standards, but then we had kids, and I surrendered to my inner Oscar. The older I get, the less I care, but Felix hasn’t loosened up at all. Like his namesake, he follows the rest of us around with a dustpan and broom, collecting our croissant crumbs, fallen popcorn, tracked in dirt, and loose hair. But tomorrow when he arrives at home after taking the redeye from San Diego, he won’t feel compelled to pick up a washrag or the broom. If he insults me by touching the Formula 409 or the vacuum, I’ll hide his coffee and his razor and he’ll look like one of the guys that collects change for playing pathetic songs on an accordion in the subways. (If I hear Volaré one more time, I’m going to fake a seizure.)

The kids have toiled like peasants today preparing for an audience with the king. They have corralled all the pieces to Mousetrap, fished Legos out from under the sofa, stashed the jetsam and flotsam of their existence into appropriate containers and shoved things into less-than-appropriate hiding places. They’ve been forced to eat their meals outside on the terrace because their mother, in an exhibit of true maternal devotion, said she’d flatten their faces if they got one crumb on the floor. (See what emulating Felix will do to you? Oscar is a jovial pacifist.)

That I’ve been able to slave away all day has been a minor miracle in itself. My stamina is seriously compromised by the medication I take and the doctor’s insistence that I abstain from caffeine. I sleep 9-10 hours a night and often wake up reluctantly, shuffling into the kitchen like a convict shackled by chains. I whip myself into shape mentally so I can make it through the morning and then often succumb to an afternoon nap. It’s shameful, but I can’t stay in the ranks of the vertical masses for long. The drugs have put me in touch with my horizontal axis. I am well acquainted with every upholstered surface in the house, and there’s a flat spot on my forehead from resting my head on the kitchen table. I’m thinking I should get a tattoo there—a replica of the graphic on “May cause drowsiness” warning sticker the pharmacists put on my prescription bottles. You know--the one that looks like a red eye with a drooping eyelid?

That sticker is right beside the one that shows a car skidding off a road—my reminder that driving or operating heavy equipment COULD be hazardous. Thank God, my computer keyboard doesn’t qualify as heavy equipment. The only heavy equipment I operate is covered by my jeans, has me anchored to my chair, and is approaching the size and shape of my computer monitor. Judging by its heft, I should operate it more than I do. Exercise sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll drag my equipment on over to the sofa and plan my next move…

August 27, 2005