Well, I did the "Illegitimate Domesticity Thing" last night (hah. Seriously, let's just make a big joke out of the whole idea instead of fretting) and cleaned my house.

It is nice to have a clean house. Yes, I could hire someone - there are supposedly a great many women in my town who make extra money doing that; some of my friends press names and phone numbers on me, telling me I "don't have time" to clean my own house (and no, it's not like any of them have seen it in a messy state. They are assuming because they do not choose to make time to do it, that I do not have time myself or do not care to take the time).

But you know? I feel worse about using (even though I am paying her) another woman to clean up MY mess (such as it is; it's mostly stacked-up mail and the dust that accumulates), than I do about doing it myself. No, I know it's not the same thing as slavery or even servitude, but it bothers me.

I see a fundamental difference between a person (or a family) taking care of itself (even if one member of the family may do a majority of the work) and bringing in someone from "outside" to clean up.

But that's just me. I don't care if other people hire a cleaning lady. Just not something I wish to do.

(Oddly, I do not insist on carrying my trash to the dump myself. However, garbage collection IS more efficient as a centralized service than it is as a do-it-yourself deal and that's not so true of housework. And since it's a city-service where I live, I assume the garbage collectors are paid well enough for their services.)

At any rate. I will say there is something kind of relaxing to the mind about cleaning house - you ARE thinking but it is about things like "Where do I put this away" or "dust first, then sweep" and not big complex difficult matters like "is chalk-and-talk still a valid form of teaching for the MTV generation? And if not, what should replace it?"

So I now have a clean house for the weekend (and, I hope, into next week - next week is blessèd Mid Fall Break, and so having a clean house - not HAVING to clean - will be a welcome thing.) I'd actually rather set aside time to do the work on a weekday evening rather than face it Saturday morning, where I could either be out having fun or over in my office getting work done uninterrupted.

I did knit a few rows on the Stanfield #27 scarf after I was done cleaning, but it was kind of late in the evening by then.