my place is once again a pigsty. at least now i know why. well, sort of why, since i've finally been officially diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which i will hereafter refer to as CFS or Flutigue because of how it makes me feel, which would be great, except that there is no treatment or cure because they don't know what causes CFS, except that there was a breakthrough recently and it may be caused by a retrovirus that is a cousin of the AIDs thang. all i can say is, whatever.

bottom line: i've fallen waaay back and behind on cleaning and laundry and everything that makes a space habitable. so i will once more be calling the lovely young woman who was referred to me by the "All about Me and not that Eve person" old woman. there is a very slight glitch. this cleaning person has been off heroin for three months, well, now four months. she claims to be ADD, but the buzzing around behavior is eerily similar to that of someone who has come off 24/7 major major major downers. who am i to quibble, right? this time around, i will forbid her to Organize anything. you'll see why in this older post, of which i'm very very proud:

okay, it's done. it's over. it was a freaking breeze after all the worrying and pre-worrying and obsessing about everything that needed to be cleaned while sitting paralyzed on the couch and not actually doing any of said cleaning and then the actual cleaning while obsessing over things that still needed to be cleaned. and the young cleaning woman who was recommended by the aged hippie woman/friend and who turned out to only be off heroin for 3 or so months and to be severely ADD (which is very similar to being off heroin for only 3 or so months) but who, blessedly, did a damn good job excepting for all of the "organizing" which was a major suckage of time and which means that i can, of course, no longer find a freaking piece of paper that i need. but damn, girl, the place is clean clean clean now.

which isn't to say that i didn't do my part too because i very much did by scouring the bathroom appliances and vacuuming after the somewhat spotty ADD vacuuming, which somehow served as an invitation for the many outlier dirt-dust-doggie hair bunnies to come to a convention in the middle of the living/dining room. they were feeling lonely or something, i guess. and then there was the hefty bagging of the 200 loads of dirty laundry that the wonderpups had been joyfully using as a giant recliner and the putting away of the piles of clothes that weren't yet filthy and the shelving of the now clean clean clean 3, count 'em, 3 loads of laundry and of the pile of fall/winter clothes that turned out to be nesting underneath the not-yet-filthy piles of clothing that needed to be put away.

so, of course, whew, after all of this pre-worrying and worrying and obsessing and then the actual cleaning and the worrying and obsessing about the actual cleaning and about the recently sober heroin addict, please god, not relapsing during the 3 hours that she was here clean clean cleaning, the city inspector shows up this morning. and it's nothing. it's freaking nothing. it's completely fine and lovely and breezy, for christ's sake. the guy is very gay and i'm very much of an unwillingly recovering fag hag and the wonderpups are in their crate but still barking furiously in their siren-like way and he asks if they are Yorkies while being completely okay and not rushing to cover his ears as so many of my freaking neighbors do no matter how many times they have heard my girls bark  before.

now, you have to realize that HAP -- Housing Authority of Portland (Oregon), which subsidizes these low income/affordable apartments has previously sent us a loooooong ass list of everything that needed to be cleaned prior to this inspection, including washing the walls and the windows -- they probably expected us to do the outside of the windows as well -- and on and on ad nauseum in a majorly fear-inducing way, especially for those several of us who have already been threatened with eviction. so i am far from the only resident here who has spent the past 10 or so days in ebbing and flowing modes of anxiety and/or panic.

so it's a relief that the inspection is a breeze and that the lovely gay inspector only peeks in at the refridgerators that we've scoured and scoured and that he only glances at the carpet and the tea/coffee/red wine/oatmeal/raisin bran/2% milk/canine urine/greenie, etc. stains that we've White Wizarded -- thanks to the very kind and generous Sirenita Lake, Bac Outed -- thanks to the recently sober heroin addict, distilled white vinegared -- thanks to the internet, and then scrubbed and rubbed and pre-worried and worried about.

but then it's not quite as much of a relief as a kind of mindfuck when he similarly glances at the multi-scoured and Baking Soda'd bathroom and hefty-bagged bedroom. he has the nerve to be mostly interested in everything working that is supposed to be working, like the mini and very cute dishwasher that they gave us because we have small spaces and because it's a green building (no solar panels on the roof and no effort to use non-toxic cleaners but it's a good effort even though the extremely low-flow toilets require multiple flushes.)

so now i'm sitting on the previously mentioned couch/loveseat, emotionally exhausted but also relieved, with my two canine-americans girls dead asleep, physically worn out from all the screaming-siren-like barking at the noise from every stop that the gay inspector made along the corridor to our apartment and then when he entered and perused our lovely dwelling for oh so brief a time. but, i mean, shit, man, this place is freaking clean clean clean.

oh shit, i forgot to talk about all the compulsive overeating that was required to manage the anxiety. well, that and the lorazepam, which i am, thank god, not addicted to. this is the heartache of this freaking carp. i weigh an all time high of 166 when i am 5'2"!!! i know, i know. in oregon, i am petite. i know. but i can only fit into two of my pants and i'm too agoraphobic to make it to Goodwill in Beaverton, the closest one. for a former fashion gal like me, this is deeply disturbing. i can fit into my streettccchhhh capri pants but now it's too cold out for them and, anyway,  i've watched way too many What Not To Wear's from both sides of the Atlantic not to know that short people do not look fetching when sporting the cropped pantaloons.

Update: it's too frigid out now for the two pairs of pants, which are thin summer-weight khaki, i guess. so now it's down to one giant pair of black velvet trousers which are full full full at the hips, which is lovely, and narrow at the ankle, but very warm, with AN ELASTIC WAIST, thank the Godiverse. i swear to Godiverse that i will soon get my very agoraphobic and flutigued self to Goodwill because i have to have some jeans in my size, whatever the hell it is now. if anyone has size 16 or 18 pants that they no longer need, i'd be happy to pay for shipping!

okay, i do admit to caring about RATINGS because there are so many people who find my posts too emotionally charged and this severely limits my readership, along with the bipolar 2 manias and such. so if you find this entertaining at all, PLEASE RATE THIS SUCKER. i'm eternally grateful to those of you who always or almost always do. PLUS I'M SICK SICK SICK WITH FLUTIGUE, PEOPLE, AND I WANT MY GOLD STARS.