cooperation
My friend Alyssa shared a Sesame Street gem on her facebook page and it was like I was reunited with a long-lost friend. I used to sing this song when I’d nanny and the kids would get …well, kid-like, and I often sing this song to myself when I’m trying to work with others. Remind me to sing this/watch this more often…
I am a bizarre mix of personality traits. I am uber-social, but sometimes I don’t play well with others. Some days I am as “What, Me Worry?” as Alfred E. Neuman (remember Mad Magazine?) and others I resemble a cross between Leona Helmsley and Mommy Dearest in sheer bitch-factor.I can be anal-retentive and obsessive-compulsive about some tasks, while I go Attention Deficit, “I don’t give a shit” on others. This is not, I suppose, the best resume fodder, and it can certainly make things really interesting when one is undergoing a major project, like, say, house-buying and moving.
Let’s observe a me in captivity (also my natural habitat) and see what these behaviors look like:
Scenario One, two nights ago: The Man comes home from work. I’m finishing ceiling painting, with screaming hands and shoulders. He asks, “do you want me to help?” and I roll my eyes (behind his back, of course) and say, “no, no I’ve got it.” He starts taking down a bed, asks me where spackle is, starts to sand a windowsill destroyed by our docile, mailman-loving dogs (insert your own sarcasm there) and I get all thin-lipped and freakish, fairly oozing bitchy-feelings out of my pores. It’s not pretty, nor does it smell good. He advises me to “lighten up Francis” and turns up the Sirius First Wave channel and I pretty much vibrate angry bitchy feelings, as he’s killing my “I am a control freak and want to do everything my way, all by myself”-mojo. Later, I’m on the computer, either on facebook or getting sucked into my Bejeweled addiction (it’s not an addiction if it’s part of my social networking, I tell myself, and if I only play it as a one-minute game from a facebook link.) –He comes to talk (in a non-threatening way) and I suggest that it’s probably best for us *not* to remodel the upstairs kitchen, at least not yet. Cabinetry is all functional, if filthy, and aside from broken cooktop and dishwasher, and missing refrigerator, it’s okay. Were we to remodel, we’d have used IKEA casework, since a number of years in my Interior Designer Life were spent “specifying” (a fancy designer word meaning “selling”) said cabinetry. It works well, it’s easy to do, and it’s cheap (inexpensive, too!). –At any rate, The issues were, 1. existing casework included an oven high-cabinet, with 30″ deep soffit above and a dimension not IKEA-like. 2. Existing tilework, on counter, is scary but not heinous. Backsplash is remarkably decent. To rip full-tile backsplash off a wall means gouging up a wall, in the best of circumstances, and new sheetrock, in the worst. We want to get into this house soon, remember? –Fitting stock casework into existing backsplash footprint is a disaster movie waiting to happen, says the nay-saying designer in me.
SO, we have a decision to get minimal new appliances, flooring, and fixtures, not including a sink (existing one is stainless, painless) and oven (the existing brown-to-black version with mod interlocking circle design on the glass has a particularly groovy Delorian-like opening feature where the door opens up on a sort of floating hinge-y thing.) (will it bake accurately? Fuck knows. Will remain optimistic, and if all else fails, use the oven yet to be purchased that’ll be in the basement kitchen.)
ALL THAT ASIDE, we were talking about co-operation, me & the man, my bitchy-pissy mood, etc., right? Right. So there we were, “shopping” for appliances online (we’ll buy ‘em local, even though by “local” we mean, potentially Lowes, Home de-Pot, or Best Buy, since the mom and pop we bought this kitchen’s appliances at is no longer) and it’s determined. 1. white won’t, won’t work. 2. Stainless might. 3. Black would be best. It’s determined, holy sheepshit, Batman– appliances are expensive (well duh!). I tell him he’s lucky I’m not a Gaggenau, Bosch, and Fischer and Paykel girl, and he shoots back, I’m lucky I don’t have to have a Jay Oh Bee. He stubbornly looks on, and says he likes the coil-top cooktop, and I start getting the hyper-bitchy, high-pitch-y, hyperventilating-y “Oh No You Did NOT Just Say That” Syndrome that means a tirade is coming on. He recognizes this, and my tirade lasts only about 47 seconds, and then he says, hmm, I guess the radiant one is okay; you’re kind of a slob about forgetting stuff and burning it, and it’s probably better to get one that’s easier to clean.” (witness me, internally pumping my fists with a “YAAAAAH!” Victory shout.)
Yeah, that was a long, drawn-out, and painfully detailed scenario, but it kind of demonstrated some things–didn’t it? But wait, there’s more.
Scenario two, yesterday: The Kid asks to help paint. I say, okay, and get things ready, advising her to get into her painting shirt and pants. She emerges in her painting shirt, barely covering her butt, “It’s like it’s long enough to be a dress!” she explains. And what street corner will you be working? wonders The Kid’s corner-working (as a school-employed traffic flagger!!) mother. –Even still, the project is begun, and The Kid does a pretty good job. But I have to nit-pick, because I am me. ”Do the whole wall, not just one spot.” “No, no, let *me* put paint on your roller!!” “AAAAAAAAK!! Don’t paint the floor!” When she asks, “can I work on the other wall now?” I say, no, finish what you’ve started (this deliciously ironic admonishment comes back to haunt me, later,) and then she grouses, shoulders slumped, “ugh, I have to paint the whooooole wa-a-a-a-all?” –uh, yeah, that’s kinda’ how it works.
Scenario 3, yesterday, later: Painting is done. The Man is home, and he and The Kid have returned from The Kid’s haircut (more like a trim) and I am taking off acres and acres of tape from masking all the yellow; I have 14 boxes waiting to be filled, I had a crap night of sleep that’s starting to wear me down, I could really use more wine, but I am buoyed by Sisters of Mercy “This Corrosion” (First Wave is turning into a saving grace). Mid tape-removal, The Man says The Kid needs food. I have paint on the stove (flat-top radiant stoves are great hoizontal work surfaces when all other horizontals are covered art-stuff, fire-crackers, bug-eating-plant-growing-kits, catterpilar-to-butterfly-houses, random acts of electronica, sewing machines, books, magazines, files, Very Important Papers, plates, cups, water bottles, and cooking pots, paint swatches and other design detritus, a curtain rod or two removed for painting convenience, a couple of boxes and notes-to-self- to send crap, some assorted bags (empty and full) and a huge dry-erase whiteboard detailing “houseswap, 2009.”) –So I ask him and The Kid to wait, tell them I have control here, I’ve got it, I’ll do it all… I take one last chunk of tape down, and realize there’s tape on a box-ish thing (doorbell housing?) and I need a stool. Looking for my stool, I realize there’s still paint on the stove. I move the paint outside, and realize the paintbrush is about to coagulate. I go to rinse it and remember I need to put away dishes in the dishwasher, and empty the sink. In the middle of that, I remove the frying pan for her grilled cheese, and set the heat on low. I spot my stool and set it under the bell-thing, only realizing then how nasty-filthy the thing is; I need to clean and dust anyway… I finish the dishes, remember the sandwich, fill the basin with cleaning liquid, and spot a box… Oh yeah, I wanted to start packing the photo boxes from the big bookcases… I start that project realizing I forgot about more spackling on The Kid’s room, then remember as I nearly trip on the stool that I wanted to clean off the doorbell box thing, as I go to the sink, I remember the sandwich and spot more tape… I forget about the sandwich as I pull tape and hunt for the screwdriver, and then I remember the doorbell box and go to the sink and… (nope, the sandwich hasn’t burned…yet…)
…you get the picture. I’m running from point A to point B, never getting anything cleared in the war zone, not really finishing the task(s) at hand… Even if The Man or The Kid had asked to help, I’d be control-freakish and tell them “no,” Left to my own devices, I’m usually kind of like this. I like to do things my way, whether I’m leaving heaps and mounds of laundry on the sofa or bed, or whether I’m IMMEDIATELY folding warm laundry neatly, half-half-thirds on towels, thirds-half on shirts, half-thirds on folded pants… I’m usually running around, multi-tasking, BUT I like to be at least moderately organized in my approach. I will at least have some vague sense of to-do list. When he’s around, when the kid’s around, when they need me, I feel like I’m supposed to be attentive to them (even while saying, “just a minute!”) and when I’m trying to ricochet between them and Too Many Things I want to, need to, do, it’s just… mayhem.
Now, if I were thinking of that Sesame Street ditty yesterday, all three scenarios might have gone smoother. I might have communicated clearly, stated my needs and desires and hopes, and I might have been able to work with both my kid and my mate in an efficient and organized manner. The house might not, today, appear to be such an unholy vortex of Mess.
But then again, at least this way I can add this to my repertoire of hummed ditties: my way
