Wash me.

When you do most of your work at home as a freelancer, you can set your own hours. This was very well summed up by this helpful chart from The Onion:

What it also means is that, deadlines permitting, you can do your housework on a Tuesday instead of waiting for Saturday. Joy!

Being that the dust in the bedroom was thick enough to plant potatoes, I decided I had better do something about it yesterday. So I hung this sign:

But it turned out that wasn't enough.

We'd done a pretty good spring cleaning weeks ago, but frankly, we only worked on those areas of the house that we knew our dinner guests might stumble into. Which was everything but the master bed and bath. Well, now it's almost the unofficial start of summer, and I had the time, so I had to muscle down and get to it.

One of the interesting things about dusting is that you feel like every bit of dust that came off every surface now has adhered to your person. When I went outside with the dog at one point during the day I was certain I would be mistaken for Pigpen.

Some people would rather clean a dozen bedrooms than one bathroom, people such as the lovely Mrs. Key. Better dust should cling to you than whatever you pick up from the can. I understand that, but when you do a good physical job and you know you're dirty, you're going to want a shower anyway -- so if you don't try to lick yourself clean, it doesn't much matter. And there are some satisfactions from bathroom cleaning that other rooms can't match. Like pulling a YUGE hairball out of the sink drain.

Good times.

Some people derive great satisfaction from cleaning, what an old boss of mine called fighting entropy, but I am not one of those people. I only derive mild satisfaction. However, it's cheaper than a gym and still a good workout, as my Advil-craving muscles could attest when I got up this morning. And you have something to show for it afterward beyond sweaty clothes.