Friday 12 February 2010

In My Room - Mid-Lolita


Eighty percent of success is showing up.

I had a plan. However, ‘the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men (an’ Lolitas), gang aft agley’. My plan was to get up at 9, computerize (messy room post), shower around 10:30 and crack on with my room tidying after that. Things started well. I got up at 8:30. After that, it all went wrong. At 11, after faffing about attempting to write something readable with a half dead computer, I went for my shower. At 11:40, freshly washed, scrubbed and moisturised, the phone rang. It was my friend Brenda asking if I’d like to go to the gym…one thing led to another, and I arrived home at 6:45, just in time to leave for my violin lesson. Just after 8, following several versions of varying quality of the ‘Petit Cheval’, I arrived home for a final time.

I stood in my doorway. What was I going to do? If I started now, I’d never finish before my 11pm bed time, and I had school the next day. Frankly, I’ve met me, and if I put off completing the task, I’d probably never finish. The only thing to do was to start, and keep going.

Suck it up.

So at 8:30, in pyjamas, armed with determination (and Gilbert and Sullivan on my ipod), I started.

I got to 10:30, decided to definitely plough on and turned my alarm clock to face the wall. From then until I finally climbed into bed, I didn’t have a clue what time it was.

I had been under the impression my mess was purely superficial. But I gave everything a quick wipe down (just with a damp cloth – I couldn’t find any cleaning equipment in the house) – turns out some of my stuff was pretty filthy. On that note, I’ve decided to buy some cleaning equipment, keep it in my room and do a bit of cleaning once or twice a week. On top of not wanting to live in a dirty room, I also have a dust allergy and I’m not sure my room in its previous state was helping all that much.

I have an irrational mould fear (you may be able to see where this is going). It’s not that bad – but I do freak out a teeny tiny bit around mould. So imagine my horror when, whilst emptying my many bags, I discovered an ex lunch. Luckily it was just an empty box with traces of soy sauce, and a flask with, as far as I could remember, dregs of tea. I wanted to take them downstairs to the sink and run – but it wouldn’t be fair on whoever found them.

Suck it up.

So there I was, at who knows what ungodly hour, armed with a scrubbing brush, washing up liquid and a face mask (left over from when Mathilde had H1N1), hunched over the bathroom sink, preparing for battle. The soy sauce ridden box wasn’t too bad. Despite wearing the face mask, the smell gradually seeped through – a distinctly soy-sauce-gone-awry smell that made my stomach churn. However, that was nothing compared to the hell that I half poured, half shook out of the dreaded flask. A smell like nothing on earth physically hit me, and I gagged – verging on vomiting into the only thing vaguely protecting me from the demons of long forgotten tea.

I did eventually finish my room. I reorganized my wardrobe by item, then by colour. I changed the contents of my drawers. I sorted my correspondence.

I got into bed at 2:40am.

Suck it up.