they should all go to hell, except cave 76
August 26, 2005, 11:06 A.M.

Well, I made up for Wednesday�s bit of slacking by really busying myself around the house last night. I don�t think Spouse was too thrilled to actually have to watch me doing all the things he would prefer to think happen by magic.

But, much like I chose last year to stop letting his feelings enter into my diet choices, this year I will not kill myself scheduling my housework around him. Dammit, he needs a good, big eyeful of exactly how much work I put into keeping this house, and cleaning up his messes. I�m not going to be a good little Stepford Wifey anymore, flitting around behind his back.

Making it all appear effortless does not make him respect me as a model of efficiency; it just makes him think it isn�t taking any effort on my part. I�ve taken this approach at work for years, tooting my own horn so that bosses and other execs take notice of my hard work, contributions and successes. So now we�re going to apply these principles to housework. It may be, as it has been in the office, the key to getting respect, promotion, raises, and even additional staff.

Anyway; I swept the carpets and the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathroom, dusted the living room and dining room, tidied up the messes and clutter, folded towels, washed, dried, hung and put away a load of my work clothes, and completed to my usual evening routine.

I temporarily suspended evening work in my room, as I am forced to sleep in there and the flying dust is giving me serious breathing issues. So I plan on working on it this afternoon, and tomorrow morning. That way, residual dust will have time to settle, and my breathing will have a chance to recover, long before bedtime.

I�d go away for the weekend, but that isn�t what I want. I don�t want to be somewhere else, and I don�t want to be with other people. I want to be home and I want to be alone. And�I don�t want to be frantically flying about the place catching up on chores.

And, like other self-help books I�ve read recently, the few kernels of sensible advice are the things I�ve been doing for years. About the only help I get out of these books and websites is the realization that, if I�m already doing these things and I feel disorganized and in need of help, all those people that buy the book to learn those tools are really in bad shape. Maybe I�m not so bad off?

I�m kind of new to the whole self-help reading field�it that the whole point? People don�t read these things to change themselves, but to compare themselves to the case histories and decide that they may be okay after all? Is that the help they provide?