C: Laziness

I am a wee bit worried about myself.  I’m thinking I might have a lazy streak, and it might be sizeable.  That is not a good thing, I realize. 

Now, don’t get me wrong: I work very, very hard.  I am busy as a bee from sunup to sundown.  I have so many balls in the air each work day that keeping them each from crashing to the ground is a constant struggle.  No, I’m not lazy about my profession, and when I come home, I am usually very tired, which gives me great justification for what I am about to say….

What I am lazy about is most things physical.  I don’t want to exercise (and there’s little time, for it given my work schedule—see? Justified!) And I don’t want to clean my house!  I am thinking of hiring a housekeeper to come in every other week or so, but I am going to have to clean the house and put away the clutter before anyone will take this job.

I was out to dinner with my good friends from next door, midlife country girl.  They are just the best neighbors, doing everything for my poor-single-self from helping with those mechanical mysteries of life, such as the tractor (thank you, Tom) to being my summertime yard keep-upper (thank you, Mary).  Their home is for sale and I don’t know what I’ll do if it actually sells….well, that will be another post.

But Mary!  Well, she’s a wonder woman.  She works at one of our local schools.  She, too, has a busy work week.  Her place, however, is neat as a pin always.  Her house is immaculate.  AND she gardens.  AND she cans vegetables and gives them to me.  AND she finds time to blog!  

At dinner the other night she was gently deprecating of herself, pointing out to Tom and me all her own idiosyncracies.  She recognized them as being just  a cut above most of the average person’s care level for home maintenance.  We called her “OCD,” lovingly, of course. 

For example, it really, really matters to Mary how the shower curtain is pulled back after one finishes a shower.  She, by golly, wants it pulled neatly to the right.  Tom, thoughtless person that he is, consistently pulls it to the left.  We laughed about it but, you know, there is something admirable in her attention to detail about her home, I must admit.

I am sitting here typing this silly post with the bed unmade, some dishes in the sink, and I don’t know when I have run the vacuum. 

So, back to laziness.  After giving it some thought, I have decided that being lazy may not equate with inactivity.  I think that one can be active all day long in some sense but lazy in others.  I work hard at the office both because it is my responsibility to do so and because it is the type of thing (using my brain) that I enjoy anyway. 

I’m typing this post for much the same reason.  This activity is something I gravitate to because I love doing it.

So, my fire-drill pace at work and my “discipline” to get a post done (I am snickering as I write that) do not take me out of the realm of lazy.  I love doing these things, so they just don’t count in giving me non-lazy score points.

Now, does this mean that because Mary so desires for her house to be neat and tidy—because it is something she loves to do—that I can say she is actually lazy, too????  I’m trying, believe me, because I just might find some justification for my lack of attention to home and hearth.

Naw.  I just don’t think I can get by with that one.  (I mean you should see how she takes care of her acreage—and mine—including a swimming pool!).  Nope.  Lazy is not a word for Mary.  In any sense.

I don’t think I will EVER reach the “be careful which side of the tub you pull the shower curtain to” level of care in my home.  However, I do need just a tad bit of Mary’s OCD about home care.  I resolve that just as soon as I save this post, I am going to get up and do something I really don’t want to do—vacuum!  C