�Which part of your house is always dirty?�

I suppose it would be a cop out to say every part of it is always dirty, since I own a little black dog?

Okay, narrowing it down, I would have to say our two bedrooms are always, always in a state of disarray. Living in a 1950�s wartime house is always a challenge, since they didn�t consider storage space of any kind to be a priority back then. We didn�t plan on staying in our starter home for more than two or three years (we celebrated our sixth year here in February), and have been loathe to spend any serious money on renovating properly.

The mix of being a pack rat and having precious little storage space is well up there with oil and water. For a while, I focused on plastic totes as the answer to all my problems; alas, I was kidding myself. We bought a residential shredder and kept up with that for a while, but now I simply find myself with scads of grocery bags, bursting with �private� papers that cannot be disposed of in the normal weekly trash.

And so it goes: whenever we entertain, or get it into our heads to spend a Saturday making a dent in the mess, piles of papers/magazines/books/clothes are lifted, intact, then walked into another room and deposited. Since no one ever goes into our bedroom, it�s usually Option Number One. When that room becomes supersaturated, it�s off to the computer room we go. Ironically, those are the two rooms Bailey is not allowed into, and are therefore the ones with the most mess but the fewest dog hairs. I keep using the term �mess�, when the question was really about �dirt�, but to me it�s all the same. Mess begets dirt in the form of thick layers of dust. Real dirt can easily be brought under control with my fabulous 3M scrubbies, but dust is insidious and hateful and I don�t know how to stop those gazillion little motes from infesting my house.

I�ve always wanted to be a cleaner person, I really have. As I�ve stated before, I�m one of those people who can stand slackjawed at the Staples displays, wanting new pens and binders and organizing systems, believing these items will make everything all right. The truth is, you�re more than likely either a neat freak or a slob. I don�t know too many people who exist consistently in the middle of those two extremes.

The Boy and I are booked in to the see the doctor later this afternoon to find out if it�s possible for us to start a family. I�ve been using positive imagery to picture a bonny little girl (our little girl!) in my mind, as if that�s going to change the outcome of this meeting. It won�t, but at the very least it�s keeping me from going out of my head between now and 5:00. I keep thinking; if the news is good, the worst I�ll have to worry about is having to morph into Monica Gellar over nine months.

Wow�..from messy rooms to children in five easy paragraphs: I am the Tangent Queen!

Posted at 12:28 p.m.