This idea shamelessly stolen from missrachael: Your life, uncen

[kellinator]

"Do you ever feel like everyone else is much better than you are at the business of everyday life - that other people don't have to brush cat litter off their feet before they get into bed, and other people's children don't have dressers with one drawer that won't open (because their mothers were smart enough not to buy their nursery furniture at IKEA), and other people can manage to cook tasty, healthy food for their families every day without spending too much money on groceries, and still have time to do the laundry too?

Do you feel like this makes those people's lives not just more convenient than yours, but also morally superior to yours?

I didn't think so, but I am crazy that way, so help me out for a minute here. Please comment and tell me about one detail of your life that is completely out of control."

I'll start:

My apartment is a disaster area. I wouldn't even dream of having anyone over, and my mom would disown me if she saw it. Despite the special covered litter box with the litter catcher and the special mat underneath, the cats track litter everywhere, and even our clean clothes are covered with a layer of cat hair, because they like to sleep in the laundry basket, which is usually where I pitch the clean clothing. There are currently three days' worth of dishes in the sink, since James is not doing so well on his side of the chores since he started the 56-hour workweek (not that I expect him to; that's a lot of work) and I'm just lazy. The sad part is it's much better than last week's dishes, which took a full hour of my weekend. I'm constantly misplacing things and taking hours to find them, and the saddest part of all is that even though it makes me depressed to look around, I just can't find the motivation to clean and organize it, especially knowing we'd all just mess it up again anyway.

Your turn.

Comments

[hotcoffeems.livejournal.com]

I like this meme:).

My back porch. It's got crap all over it. Including clothes, a bag of trash I haven't gotten around to taking to the dump, cat dishes, a broken bamboo pole, a ratty, weather-worn box full of styrofoam peanuts that I should have either stored for future re-use or taken to the dump before it became so ratty, a rotting, collapsed microwave cart, a bunch of just...stuff that needs to be swooped off and taken dumpwise. But I'd need a truck, and I'm too embarrassed to ask any of my truck-owning friends to do it (sadly, Ray *volunteered* to do it, and I put him off, because I'mm so embarrassed (and I have no idea why: he's not exactly judgmental about it, fer chrissake).

It is definitely the nasty hick back porch. And it embarrasses me.

[hotcoffeems.livejournal.com]

Oh, and a door. I have a g-d screen door sitting on my porch. Just sitting there, gathering weed growth.

[ardentdelirium.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* Im 25 and live in my parents' basement. I can't pay my bills. and no one wants to give me a job.

[dorei.livejournal.com]

Just one??

I have a desk in the bedroom. It's rather nice -- one of those big hutches with massive shelving space. I don't use it. I use the bed for my laptop. Why? Because there's no room on my desk. On my desk is about five months worth of mail. I'm sure amid the junk mailers and the like are bills that were never paid, or were paid but either online or late. And of course, there's still empty glasses, or mostly, anyway, except for the science projects that have started in them. There were, until yesterday, the dessicated remains of some chicken nuggets from Chik Fil A. I'm not sure how old they were. Up until last week, there was a half-filled styrofoam cup from Robek's, that thankfully had a lid on it, because fruit flies bred in it while I ignored it on the desk. Yes, I am the reason there are fruit flies in our house (actually, they're gone now, courtesy of Home Paramount Pest Control).

[laurel714.livejournal.com]

I'm living out of duffle bags in Super 8 Motel rooms. I don't know where I'll be from one week to the next. I have to constantly pack and repack everything I own into the trunk of the car. The ghetto cruiser is old and getting rusty and has 145,000 miles on it. The biggest loss of control is not having an address. The second related loss is the motel-room lottery: it might be nice, it might be scary - and will they allow dogs? Lastly, what will happen if the car dies in a cornfield in Nebraska?!

[raistlinbrown.livejournal.com]

Your house sounds like my house. Maybe not quite as bad, so I'm feeling better already. Thanks! :- )

[squiddna.livejournal.com]

"Lastly, what will happen if the car dies in a cornfield in Nebraska?!" You'll be strafed by a biplane.

Okay

[squiddna.livejournal.com]

I feel a little bit better about my apartment but only because I've already stopped thinking about it. It's a vicious cycle of being depressed about the state of the apartment and being too depressed to gather the motivation to clean it. It all starts with sloth, of course.

[captain-mayhem.livejournal.com]

I can't, or at least, am not willing to share my weaknesses.
However, I feel your pain. It's not that anyone is lazy, only meant for things greater than being on hands and knees with a scrubber.
Don't let anyone make you feel like you are under their standards just because your standards are different.
Internally, you are much more organized where externally, most need a front for what really goes on inside them...it's a facade of control to hide where they completely lack any.

I've been to your place, and it's nothing I can't take care of.
Get me boxes, drugstores/grocery stores always have more than the crushers in back can handle.
Get me boxes in vast amounts.
Cleaner - if I can come back and assess the job again, I'll know what cleaners we need.
For now, get the boxes, then get back to me.

See ya!

[amenquohi.livejournal.com]

My checkbook is a disaster. Even when my husband and I made over 6 figures, and we still lived paycheck to paycheck with very little in savings. I'm constantly scrabbling before payday, transferring money around so we don't bounce a check. I'm 41 years old. How pathetic is that?? It is getting moderately better since I quit work (I'm being much more frugal), but this next week is going to be really tight.

Worst part is, I'm not a shopaholic. I can't even tell you where most of the money goes.

[katyakoshka.livejournal.com]

I have too much on my plate in every aspect of my life, and no one wants to leave me the time to get that shit taken care of, in addition to the time it takes to catch my breath. I'm overweight in a way that means I'm uncomfortable and still unused to my size and lack of fitness. I lost the fitness I'd gained because I'm not sociopathic enough to kill the fucking teen shits that hang out in my neighborhood, and going elsewhere to work out defeats the point of taking up running, which is flexible and (theoretically) doesn't require driving. My apartment is a mess and I need to take a day off to get all that shit sorted out, but until we hire someone and all that, I can't afford it, and then I'm gone until the 20th of November.

Too much too soon too little time too little space and I need a sniper and a clock tower. Okay, not really on the last one. Yet.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

I left my husband 6 years ago, and I still haven't unpacked all the way. There are still packed boxes in every room of my new apartment, but the office is worst.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

One? AHAHAHHAAHAHA.

My weight. It yo-yos with my mental state, and since number the times I'm depressed by far ...outweigh...the number of times I'm not, I tend to be fat.

I have bad knees, bad ankles, and a bad back, so exercise is painful and torturous, which makes me not want to do it.

But society and my mother and my self esteem and my doctor in that order insist I should lose weight, but the doing of that is also painful and torturous, because I am either starving all the time and therefore miserable, or unsatisfied all the time because diet food [although it has improved greatly since my teens] is often bleah and frequently not what I most like to eat.

I also can't afford to go to a gym, and working out on machines doesn't keep me motivated anyway. If it feels like exercise, I will hate the pain and the sweat and lose interest.

So I'm within 20 pounds of 300, and I hate it. I hate myself. I hate that I don't have the willpower to just "suck it up" like everybody else seemingly can, and just do what it takes.

[spudmanson.livejournal.com]

*my advice to you, paper plates, plastic flatware.*

My office has had the same amount of shit on the floor for... well, since we moved in. My shoes for the wedding sat on top of a bookcase in the living room from June til about a week ago when my mom came over.

My desk is a mess, the dresser next to my side of the bed has stuff piled so high on it that it's started falling off onto the floor, and the corner where my trashcan is next to the bed, well, I think my trashcan is in there somewhere.

You know how some people have a junk drawer? I have about 10, in various places throughout the house. With various junk in them.

And boxes of stuff. A whole closet full of stuff that I take out every once in a while and throw back in when people come over.

[heathrow.livejournal.com]

So many unpacked boxes from the move last month. Some days, I just let the TV run all day while I play with the kids.

I'm so tired, i can't remember the last time I had sex with my husband, and I'm feeling very sorry for myself.

[soshesays.livejournal.com]

I'm shy. To the point that it's totally ridiculous and might be better defined as massive social anxiety. I hide behind my husband whenever we hang out with people that I've known for less than five years, and if I have to interact with those people by myself, I spend DAYS beforehand hyperventilating and DAYS afterwards kicking myself for everything stupid I could have possibly said.

Most everyone is writing about how messy their apartments are -- well, mine is pretty darn clean, but that could mostly be attributed to the fact that I would much rather scrub the bathroom than go out and socialize. So basically, being a neat freak doesn't always pay off ...

[horacethe3rd.livejournal.com]

I moved to California in hopes of..you know, I have higher aspirations than making money, but I don't know what they are. Because of the higher good, though, I'm taking a job for less pay than what I've made for the past two years, with no benifits for 6 months and even then, they're not spectacular. I don't think I'll be able to afford a place of my own on this meager income, and even if I work part time at another job I'm not really certain I'll be able to make it. I'm grateful to have a friend who will let me crash on the floor for as long as I need to, but I'm ashamed that I'm going to have to for a couple of months. I'm ashamed that I stayed at that hotel for so long, and that I'm not better prepared to start moving up in the world. Everything I own is in boxes in a dirty garage behind this house, but I'm able to survive on what was packed in two duffel bags and a small suitcase. The newspaper said that this island is at the top of the list for "liquefaction" (I think is the word they used) if a significant earthquake hits, and that freaks me the hell out. I don't even know what that means, but for half a day I kept saying "liquefecation" which sounds demonic.

I'd say my apartment is a mess, but it's really just my mental state that's a problem - I don't think I'm sleeping very well on this mattress from the sofabed. And then there's the waking up at 6 when Derek starts milling around...and I shouldn't complain, because it's really not that bad, but it is.

[teague.livejournal.com]

I'm on Nelnet's Most Wanted list. I haven't made a payment on my student loans yet, and it's definately out of hand. It's not that I don't want to pay, it's just that thusfar I have not had the money. I know I can get deferments for a time, but I get eeked out at the thought of calling them. They won't take an application over the phone. They want a paper thing. I get confused by the form. I really wish someone else would do it.

*lesigh*

[shes-precious.livejournal.com]

My son has set the house on fire twice. He sneaks into our rooms and rambles through our drawers and steals things. He has taken a knife and carved holes in the walls and furniture. He used my wheelchair as a battering ram and put holes in the living room walls. He has stolen my credit card and monies from my wallet. He decided that throwing his $700 clarinet up and down the halls at school was a fun way to go to the principal's office when already in trouble. Things confiscated from him seem to magically make their way back to his room. We caught him trying to sell his Adderall at school. Most of this is acting out because of my ex-husband, his father, who treats him like unwanted dog shit and we have tried everything within and beyond reason.

[shes-precious.livejournal.com]

and I didn't even mention the mounting hospital bills, the lack of energy from my treatments, the constant being sick, the lack of money, the disaster of my house, the three-year old whose new favorite phrase is "I don't want to" ... I think my entire life is out of control

[blondeheroine.livejournal.com]

I hope I didn't stress you out by asking when you would have an address! :D I'll simply have to save your postcards and gifts and you'll get a nice big pinata full of stuff.

And here's mine:

I don't have a bed. I have a couch. That's right. I sleep on a couch. I live with my mother and atrocious stepfather and, as such, have no real bed. My mother has offered many times, but in a three bedroom, suburban house, there just isn't enough room. Why? Because what was once my room is now basically a storage area or catch-all and the other room my stepdad keeps multiple instruments of which he can't play any. The upside to this is that I've found I can sleep almost anywhere. But I figured that out during economics class in high school.

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

and the saddest part of all is that even though it makes me depressed to look around, I just can't find the motivation to clean and organize it, especially knowing we'd all just mess it up again anyway.


i SO here ya there, sister.

me?

well, i have yet to get paid from the piano shop for work dating back to june. this is NOT their fault - i simply have not turned in my paperwork to GET paid. similarly, i have not done my taxes, even though my extension deadline just passed me by. well, correction - i HAVE done my taxes. they're printed out and with our mortgage shit. in a pile next to my desk. i don't have all the money to pay the GDOR or IRS, but i probably WOULD have all the money if i just did my fucking paperwork and got current with my pay. oh, and i have now TWO piano actions sitting in my garage to be worked on.

everyone i know gives me all this sympathy and allowance and excuses because i'm "SO busy." but the truth is that i'm not THAT busy. i got home at around 8 tonight, and instead of working on any of that, i had dinner and watched two episodes of Lost and am now fucking around on the computer.

the same goes for my own music - i was supposed to spend a whole day this past weekend working on two songs that need finishing. did i? nope. i don't really understand why i can't pull myself out of the habit of avoiding things i love doing. it's fucking retarded. instead, i berate myself and become really avoidant about everything.

and i have two clean pairs of underwear left.

i can't believe i'm considering getting pets when i can't manage to take care of myself or my own surroundings.

[azurelunatic]

My finances are pretty scary. I know I could get them sane if I would quit doing random stupid things, and I'm always skating on the edge of broke but never quite there, but then I go and think "Well, I have enough spare for a ____," which is sometimes something I need, and sometimes totally not.

Additionally, books are on approximately every flat surface except for most of the floor.

My cooking habits are slightly nightmarish. I have been known to eat the same thing for like three days in a row. Not "have this for one meal each day"; that happens all the time. But "all three meals are chicken soup because that's what I cooked" type thing. And I only cook when I'm in the mood to do so; it's like an artistic project. I like to drink applesauce through a straw for breakfast. With soda in, sometimes.

[spikepage.livejournal.com]

I don't own any nice clothes anymore. Not that I am a clothes-horse, but at this moment in time I have two pairs of pants that are not part of my work uniform. I own one pair of shoes and one pair of boots. I own NO nice sweaters or dress pants or skirts, and I do not have a winter coat that's fit to wear anywhere but to a hayride. In short, if somebody were to offer me a "night on the town", I would have to decline because I would have to spend at least 100 bucks to look decent. Suffice it to say I don't go to church, weddings, funerals or fancy parties.

[laurel714.livejournal.com]

LOL - no worries.

I had to call a company for something today and they wanted my address and they didn't understand when I said I didn't have one. They kept repeating, "But where do you live?" And I kept saying, "Various Super 8 rooms in the mid-west." I wanted to just say I lived in a van down by the river, but obviously they didn't have a sense of humor.

[celeloriel.livejournal.com]

...Are you secretly reading my mind and posting my secret thoughts VERBATIM?!

*boggled*

[lindsaygail.livejournal.com]

I'm 25 and haven't learned how to feed myself. I can't even think about food until I'm hungry, and once I get even a little hungry nothing sounds good at all ( I suspect I might be hypoglycemic) and I get nervous and weepy. My husband has to force me to eat sometimes. I never plan ahead about food, so I'm often stuck somewhere, hungry, with nothing to eat. I hate going to the grocery store so I put it off as long as possible, and then when I do go I get totally bewildered by all the choices and end up buying lots of vegitables that will go bad in the fridge, and lots of junk that we will eat within a few days. I end up having salitines for dinner and going to bed hungry, so it's hard to sleep.

[scyllacat.livejournal.com]

I know everyone feels like this about their weight, but I have been wearing like the same three pair of pants for the past year because I keep promising I'm about to lose weight ANY MINUTE, but I haven't yet. I'm 30 pounds overweight (rather than my "usual" 15-20) for the first time in my life, but that time has now lasted almost 2 years. I hate it. I'm going to have to do something else hateful to stop it: the big OK-I'm-Going-On-A-Diet counting calories, exercising, taking lots of vitamins, cutting out ALL sugar; with all the blood sugar swings, intestinal irritaion, and exhaustion that always accompanies a major metabolic change.

There. Confessed. I feel better already.

We can get into my dependency issues, poor housekeeping skills, and drama-queening some other day.

May I plug Flylady (http://www.flylady.net) at you? (again??) It's helped me a lot...

[ellimayhem.livejournal.com]

Most of my life is completely out of control. I'm just good at improvising and making it look like I meant to do what I did.

[sallerina.livejournal.com]

i overdraw my checking account practically every month. i make good money, that's not really the problem. the problem is that i only get paid once a month and i am too immature to budget in between pay-days.

[bheansidhe.livejournal.com]

Right now I'm four hours past a deadline because this project was so damn boring that the only way I could make myself do it was to wait until the last minute, and rely on panic for motivation.

I am too old for this shit.

On the bright side, I did an awesome job. *sigh* And there were some delays that weren't my fault - but I should have finished this earlier.