way too clean

this is my pillowcase. it is much whiter now than it was only a few weeks ago. but i am telling the end of the story already. let me go back a little...

i am a very tidy person, for the most part. i feel quite strongly that everything should be put in its proper place, and should be neat and orderly. but not necessarily clean. some (annoying) people say that cleanliness is next to godliness, but i prefer to say that cleanliness is next to wastefulness. it wastes time. it wastes energy. it wastes water. it wastes space. and it wastes good ol' dead skin cells.

seriously. i mean that.

i, for one, like me. self-loathing has rarely been an issue for me, and that is more than simply psychological - it is downright physical: i like my smell. you know what i mean. each one of us has a smell - the combination of our cells falling off, our souls oozing through our own pores, and our very essence, our life-breath, filling the space around us. yes, we each have our smell, and i must admit that i like mine. i am not ashamed to say that i prefer the aroma of my self to the sanitary smelllessness of chemicals. when i wash my hair i can feel the stiffening effect of every syllable of every unpronouncable chemical in the eternally long ingredient list on the back of the shampoo bottle. or when i put on my newly washed jeans, stiffly constricting my movement, i hear them complain to me with every painful step about the rough and tumble of the spin cycle. i could go on and on here, but that would eventually get dramatic, and you all know my aversion to drama, so let it suffice to say that i prefer my own textured dirt to the sterility of white-washed surfaces.

and that goes for my pillowcase. the pillowcase that i use each night is one i've used since i was a child. it is familiar. but it is familiar not just because it is known to me, but because in a very real way it is me. i sleep on it every night and i don't wash it. it nourishes my skin and soothes my speeding mind. it comforts me with the smell of sleep. it whispers in so gently and softly in my ears, "relax, greg. this is your place. this is where you belong. breath deeply and be at peace." this is why i sleep on it every night and i don't wash it.

well, unless someone "accidently" throws it in the laundry, like my mother-in-law ruthie did when jack was born. so nice of her to do some things around the house to help us out at such a time as that, but that was uncalled for. she feigned ignorance and therefore innocence, but she knew what she was doing and was as guilty as o.j. it took months to return it to its proper odor.

so it has now been two and a half years since its been washed. it is wonderful. and then shannon turns 30 and decides to make a list of 30 things she wants for her birthday and one of them turns out to be that she would love it if she could wash my pillowcase. what was i supposed to do? choosing my battles, i decided to let her wash it, a decision i regretted later that night when i plopped my head down on a chemical-laden cloth abrasively ripping at my face like an acidic astringent. all i want to do at night is sleep, not lie in a bed of chemicals that will one day be proved to be causing us all cancer.

and so i simply ask for your sympathy. i am trying to break it in again, but it is a daunting task. it is so white and bright, like a big clean flourescent bulb shining into my brain at night. it hurts. so, when you lie down at night on your dead skin cells and all the bed-bugs eating those cells, think of me in my misery. i have miles to go before i sleep.

way too clean,
greg.