I received a spam this morning that had the subject line, "Kleenex community college."



I wonder if their diplomas are tissue-thin and fall apart in the rain?


I knit some on the Jaywalker socks last night. I was sort of tired because I rushed around and cleaned house as soon as I got home. See, someone from one of the groups I belonged to needed to pick something up from me. And although my house is never *unhygienic* and it never approaches the houses I see on "Organize This!" (and the other scary scary shows where some self-appointed Adjutant of Cleanliness shows up and says things like "So? This tea-bag holder is the only thing you inherited from your beloved grandmother? But do you actually use it? No? Well, then, let's throw it in the "give away" pile!" [sound of breaking china as the person's sole link with that generation is ground into dust.] But I exaggerate. Still, I am deeply uncomfortable about the thought of allowing some stranger into my life to tell me what I can and cannot keep.)

Anyway. My house is base-clean, but I needed it to be really clean - because, you see, I don't want people to realize that I'm just a "pretend grown-up." (Although I suspect some of them already realize it; probably for many the simple fact that I've never married puts me firmly in the "pretend grown-up" camp). So I rushed about - she told me she was coming at 4, and I got home shortly before 3. I spent a certain amount of time debating: if I don't have time to clean both my 'grotty' kitchen and my 'grotty' bathroom,* which one is worse to leave undone? (In the end I did a spit-and-polish on both: didn't scrub the floors but they looked clean enough).

(*neither of which were really, in actual fact, all that grotty)

So 4 pm rolls around, and I sit down to do the grading I brought home with me. And I wait. And I wait. And I contemplate dinner. And I go to the kitchen and figure I have the proper makings for what I want, saving a trip to the grocery.

Finally, at about 4:40, she pulls up, in a hurry, on her way to tennis - she forgot she was stopping at my place. She didn't even come in.

D'oh. Well, at least my house is extra clean now.

And I realize: if people are saying bad things about my messy house behind my back, well, that's kind of their problem and not mine. But still. It's part of my neurosis about wanting to be seen as a For-Real, True, Actual Grown-Up Person, rather than some overblown teenager who's just pretending. (The fact that I am a tenured professor who has published journal articles tends to slip my mind on these occasions). And having a clean house: somehow that says "grown up" to me in a way few other things do.