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Tue, September 12

Living Together

Week #1

So J and I finally are living in a real apartment of our very own. While it was nice to pretend that we lived in a luxurious two bedroom at Sutton Place, it feels good to no longer be sleeping on someone else’s pull out couch in their TV room.

It has been one week, and now that the two of us are surrounded by all our own stuff (ahem, a LOT of stuff) in a space we plan to settle in for some time, the wonders of living and sharing a small space with another human being whom you love dearly have come to light. Things you never knew could possibly irk someone suddenly emerge.

Example #1: Blue toilet bowl cleaner tablets.
I had never known the level of disgust I could elicit from J until I came home from Duane Reade with blue toilet bowl cleaner tablets. In a very serious tone, as if say, I’d done something really horrible like turned our bathroom into a ladies boudoir complete with those fuzzy covers on the toilet seat, he said, “Babe? I really HATE the toilet bowl cleaner you bought. Ok. I DETEST the blue toilet bowl cleaners. In fact, it reminds me of an old lady’s apartment.”

“Well, I countered, we ARE living in an old lady’s apartment.” There are plenty of reminders around us—since J’s dad still owns this place, we’ve been forced to keep all of his grandma’s furniture. Every day I find some remnant of this woman’s life (she died over a year ago): A Sally Hansen hair curler, a heating pad, books about vegetable diets.

Though I’d proven my point, J was not finished. “It’s just that…I would really PREFER that you not buy the blue toilet bowl cleaner tablets.” Ok. I got it. So I returned them to Duane Reade two days later. I still haven’t heard the end of it with regards to that one purchase.

Example #2: The makeup brush on the bathroom sink.
Though J is perfectly content to live in an utter and complete mess—all of his junk is in piles that I’ve placed along the periphery of the apartment so I have a place to walk—J had a bone to pick with me about the makeup brush I’d cleaned Sunday night and left to dry on the bathroom counter Monday morning.

“Lex, you know, the bathroom is the only neat place in this apartment” (um, whose fault is that? MY stuff is all put away neatly in drawers and closets). “And your makeup brush was out on the sink this morning, and I’m assuming you wanted it to stay there forever right? Well, I’d prefer if you’d find another home for it.”

First I pointed out that if he’d inspected the bathroom since he’d come home from work Monday, that I’d removed it the moment I walked in the door. The makeup brush, I explained, was not intended to live on the counter, but rather to dry. I am a clean person and I have hygienic routines, one of which is a weekly cleaning of my makeup brushes. I found it funny that the only item of mine that was not in its proper place was that makeup brush—and it was merely left out of place overnight.

Example #3: To clean after or before dinner?
I’ve always cleaned up from making a meal AFTER I’ve eaten it. I am usually so hungry it takes everything within my power to NOT eat the entire meal before I’ve even finished cooking, so for me to add in clean up to my wait is pretty much out of the question. But the other night I made tomato salad with our dinner. I was about to carry my wine to the table, when J pointed a finger at the cutting board with the tomato carcass on it, and said, “Hello? Clean after yourself please.” I told him that I was planning on eating first. “Oh, so you’re allowed to have your “things” but I’m not?” Ok. He won that argument.

Example #4: What does “dirty” really mean?
I admit that my concept of dirty is a little less lenient than most. But I do think that using a towel for more than two weeks is unsanitary. Its wet, it sits in a moist place, and gets jiggy with the most intimate parts of your body. A week tops is my personal limit. I am pretty sure J lied to me about the towels that were still hanging in the bathroom from before a month ago when he had to leave the apartment until the co op approved us, being clean. Ditto for the bed sheets, which because of dust mites and such, require the two-week rule of dirty as well. Hopefully we’ll come to some middle ground. This middle ground will probably be ME washing our bed sheets and making the bed with clean ones since I’m the one who has an issue with it.

I do have a complaint about myself. I know I am not without faults:

I have become my mother.

There, I said it. I felt the metamorphosis setting in from the moment I first left the house for college. It started with obsessively vacuuming with one of those little hand held vacuums, my “Welcome Mat” in front of my dormroom—the only rug type item I owned at the time. When I moved into a carpet free apartment in the east village, I obsessed over Swiffering the floors. Now, with wall-to-wall carpeting, the monster vacuum that was left by the old lady is my new best friend. I can’t help but vacuum every day since I’ve moved in. Poor J, he works so hard for a moment’s peace at the end of the day and I’m literally chasing him off the carpet with my vacuuming. Now I understand how my mom built such nice arm muscles without ever living a barbell.

All in all, I find these quirks incredibly funny. People always say you think you know someone until you live with them. I don’t’ think that one’s preference for white or blue toilet cleaner tablets really illuminates new things about your significant other’s’ personality. What it does do is give you each an opportunity to learn about yourself and how you react to your significant’s suggestions, disagreements, and comments. Even more importantly, it provides lots of opportunities for laughter…

Posted by lexzog at September 12, 2006 11:47 PM

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