washing dishes

any time a group of [unrelated] people live together, washing the dishes eventually becomes a point of contention. i'm not sure why this is the case, but it has happened to every set of roommates i've known, including the ones of which i've been a part. nobody wants to wash anybody else's dishes, and most people don't even want to wash their own. at the same time, nobody wants a sink full of dirty dishes, and people get really upset if they pull a dirty dish out of the cupboard.

doing the dishes is actually one of my more favorite household chores (laundry being the other), but i'm not going to do it for just anyone. there's something about taking care of one's own belongings, and even moreso taking care of one's own place, that just makes certain tasks less despicable. (the word stewardship has been bouncing around in my brain a lot over the past few months; i think that it may apply here and that it merits more thought.) i'm finding now that i live on my own that washing the dishes is an even greater pleasure, because i know that everything in the sink is mine, and i'm responsible for it. furthermore, pulling dirty dishes out of the cupboard doesn't piss me off as much (or happen as frequently, by my standards) either, because i know that if something isn't the way i want it to be, i was responsible for that too.

maybe it's just taking pride in one's own responsibility, and the frustration that arises when one either has one's responsibility taken from them, or has another's responsibility effectively forced onto them.

there have been times when i have literally gotten into screaming, yelling fights over the state of the dishes. i have friends who've taken more passive-aggressive routes, washing only their own dishes, or ceasing to cook anything at home when the sink gets full. (one even packed the dirty dishes his roommate had promised to clean into a box shortly before they moved into a new apartment together--that didn't end well.) those who are "quiet" about it never fail to complain to everyone who visits the kitchen when the roommate isn't there.

maybe it foreshadows that i will eventually be doomed to a life of domesticity, but there have also been times when washing the dishes has dropped me unexpectedly into an almost absurd state of contentment. all of these have centered around peaceful dishes-washing relationships--much harder to come by than hostile perpetually-full-sink roommate situations. i have stood alone in the kitchen washing dishes after someone else cooked a meal that we shared, and been profoundly happy. drying the dishes as someone else cleans them, and being the person to put everything in its right place--perhaps for the first time--has meant more to me than i can condense into a sentence this week. what is it that makes us want to care for that which does not belong to us?

...this is not as simple a subject as i intially imagined it to be.

random image for the day:

a woman with moderately poofy hair standing outside shadyside hospital, wearing a hospital gown, pushing the IV pole she was hooked up to, and smoking a cigarette.

thought:

the interesting part about the solitude i practiced yesterday was the unexpected connections to other people. a letter. a phone call. i didn't expect these simple things to make me as happy as they did, or to be as unobtrusive as they were. and maybe they won't be always, and maybe it depends on which people they came from, but it's worth reflection.

found - Asperger's in relationships

The Missing Piece
by Richard Howlin in Psychotherapy Networker magazine

...there's some interesting stuff in this one.

realization:

in chat with steph:

[15:47] me: i want a cucumber.
[15:47] me: it's been a long time since i've eaten cucumber.
[15:47] me: that's such a funny word
[15:47] me: cucumber
[15:47] me: cucumber!
[15:47] me: heheh
[15:47] me: cucumber.
[15:48] me: I NEED TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL

thought:

hey, hey, remember all those muscles that felt really good yesterday?
they are totally killing me today.
let's go do it again.

reminder:

everything only ever happens very quickly.

should vs. is

things i should be doing:
-washing the dishes
-finishing the packet of "How to Live Here"
-de-cluttering my desk and tables
-reading, something, i'm sure
-planning a schedule
-walking the building and paying attention to what's in it
-writing at least one letter
-balancing my checkbook

things i am doing:
-catching up on texts from last night, because i no longer have work to read it at
-browsing iGoogle homepage themes
-drinking coffee in the evening (following a nap, of course)
-downloading interesting fonts
-trying to see how long i can go without taking more cold medicine
-writing a vapid list instead of a real blog post

Updates, or something

so it's the saturday after the week after (most) classes ended for the summer, and it's my last day of work at the library, and there is virtually nobody here except the occasional grad student returning their books, and i feel like i should be writing something. i like to keep my blog posts to short, snippy, interesting-for-their-vaguery-or-their-conciseness bits, but what i really want to write is a long, drawn-out, self-indulgent-blogger Update On Things That Have Been Happening To Me. in short, a livejournal entry ;)

that said, i'm struck by concerns that "i passed out in the shower this morning. it's ok, she caught me" is not internet-appropriate.

we've been learning a lot these last few weeks. i've been learning a lot, i mean. i'm sure multiple people have been as well. it's the sort of learning that is hard to write about, learning about what family means and how the universe works and why people are the way they are. i'm still trying to figure that one out, actually.

i'm wearing my cock boxers! it's gonna be a good day.

i went to a rave a few weeks ago. it was an amazing experience. so much of the world opened up to me. people were free to be and do whatever they are and do, and it's so totally relaxing. it's a relief, really, to not have to worry about putting on a front of any kind, and just Be Yourself. do whatever you are meant to do, whatever makes you comfortable. the atmosphere of unconditional love and respect is a brilliant lesson in What Life Could Be. (i just read the tao of pooh again and i am all about Unexpected Capitalization.)

there's a lot of time happening between these paragraphs. i'm distracted. i'm chatting with steph in another window, and we have always been the best at bouncing ideas off each other. sometimes we are the voice for each other's ideas, as she put it recently.

then there was her 21st birthday, which was just as much of a shitshow as i expected it to be.....i don't know what i'd do without her roommates; that would have been a good deal messier than it was. and i feel bad about some of the things that happened, and my role in contributing to them, but at the same time, god was that walk funny.

i'm having a hard time believing that it's almost halfway through august already, as far as the time i have left to do stupid things without it impacting my real life. this summer has been a much-needed break, and i hope i'll be ready to think seriously again when school starts up. then again, i'm not entirely sure what "thinking seriously" will entail anymore. it might be different now.

on saturation

it's strange to find our limits.
but it's good to recognize that humans have them.
we are finite beings.

on family

"she's my mom."
"that's your mom?"
"well, not my real mom, but she teaches me a lot."

hippy-dippy thought for the day:

water should never be sold. who was it who decided you could own water? this may be the stupidest idea ever. it's water. everybody needs it, and nobody can live without it. how can you own that? you'd never sell "bottled air"....

that said, there should be a mechanism to make water clean and safe to drink. and there are many, and those do have to be owned by someone. but you shouldn't have to pay to get clean water, at least not in the way that we currently do. there should never be anyone who "can't afford" water. it should be a tax: your taxes pay for the water company, and everybody can get water. like school, or roads, or other public goods that are less important.