My never-ending, relentless pursuit of perfection

I'm the best wife, the best mom, the best friend, the best daughter, the best housewife, the best everything!! I'm the BEST! I'm soooo the best. I'm the best, right? Am I the best? I'm at least good at most of the stuff I do, right? I think. Well, sometimes. Nevermind! I suck. I suck at everything! Everybody else is awesome and I SUCK!

I want to be awesome at everything (or at least awesome at something). Doesn't everyone? I mean, don't you want to be the best juggler there ever was? Or the best ping pong player? Or the best karaoke singer at your favorite bar? Or the best at balancing a broomstick on the palm of your hand?

The problem is: my squishy, deteriorating, putty-like mommy brain can't focus on more than one thing at a time. So, for example, if I decide one day that I'm going to be the best housekeeper in the world, then that's what I do. That's all I do. I make lists. Lots and lots of extremely detailed lists. I spend hours contemplating what I think I should be able to accomplish in a single day/week/month. I Google the hell out of "Cleaning Lists" and "Time Management" and "How to be the Best Housekeeper Ever." How could I not be the best at cleaning? I've researched it.

And then I start my strict cleaning regiment.

I'm awesome! My house is so clean! Come on over, bitches! I'm not afraid of your impromptu visits! Not at all! This is how my house ALWAYS looks. 'Cause I'm awesome!

This lasts for about a week (if I'm lucky). In that week, I hover over everyone in my family, cleaning up after them like I have OCD. God forbid my husband uses a plate for his food. I watch him like a vulture until he's done with his sandwich. "Are you done yet?" Once he confirms his meal finale, I swoop in to grab his plate and promptly load it into the dishwasher.

It's worse with my kids during the "OCD clean week." I have an internal nervous breakdown every time they play with more than one toy at once. "You didn't put the last toy away?! We ALWAYS put the last toy away before we take something else out! Don't you know ANYTHING?!" As if we've had that rule in the past.

Regardless of the fact that I'm emotionally abusing my children by either yelling at them to clean up their shit or ignoring them entirely in order to clean and clean and clean, my house is still looking awesome at this point (which is all that matters because I need to be the BEST). But, after alienating everyone in my household (and in my life) with my pseudo OCD, I realize that I may be going "a little" overboard.

This is where it all goes wrong.

Garbage, scraps of paper, fast food bags, toys, dirty dishes, dust, spiders, raisins (how do raisins end up everywhere?) crushed up Cherios, sticky floors....skanky everything invades my home! I don't really know how it happens so fast and really, I don't care at that point.

What happened? I gave up. Why? Because if I can't achieve perfection, then screw it all. Now I don't want to do anything but sit on the couch, check my Facebook 4,298 times in 8 hours and ugly cry at commercials. Oh well. I'll predictably start my next never-ending, relentless pursuit of perfection next week.

You're crazy, man. I like you......but you're crazy.

This is how social networking ruined my life:

I was somewhat happy with my life. I had this blog that I would update on a somewhat regular basis. It was set to "private," so only my friends and family could view it. Life was simple. And I was productive. I even checked my email.

Then a bunch of people were like, "You should totally get a Facebook!" I didn't even know what "get a Facebook" meant. I scoffed at the idea. "That's stupid," I said.

But then, something monumental happened. I received a call from one of my cousins. "Dude! Is Schmelissa pregnant?" (I've changed her name to protect her identity). Schmelissa is another one of our cousins....one of our very young, not-married, not-even-close-to-being-ready-to-have-a-baby cousins (Sorry Schmelissa). I paused for a moment. I asked, "Where did you hear that?" FACEBOOK! It turned out that someone hijacked her Facebook account and decided to mess with everyone. It totally worked, but that's beside the point. So it was then that I realized I was missing all kinds of stuff! I hate to be left out of stuff! So I gave in and "got a Facebook."

Holy shit! Look at what I've been missing! OMG! That's somebody I knew when I worked at the Dairy Queen when I was 13! What? You want to be friends with me? Of COURSE! We're friends now!! YAY!!!! What's Mafia Wars? There's a bunch of people who want me to join their mafias? How awesome is that!? We're mobsters! HahaHAhaaHahaHaHA!!

I was hooked. I lost hours (months, really) of my life. I forgot I had responsibilities to attend to. I forgot about anyone who wasn't "on my friends list." I even sometimes forgot I had two small children to take care of. "NOT NOW!! Mommy's busy! I'm about to rob this guy real quick. He has it coming. He had the nerve to rob me and he's like two levels below me. What an arrogant asshole."

That went on for a year or two (I lost all concept of time) until I started to get annoyed by Facebook. I would log on in the morning and read the constant, incessant, never-ending whining by those "friends" of mine. "I have to go grocery shopping. Bleh. This sucks."

Facebook is crazy. I like it, but it's crazy. I'm ready to reclaim my life. That's what this blog is all about. I want to write again. The other (very squeaky clean) blog is still going to be updated, but this one is for me, by me, and I make no excuses for my occasional use of the "F" word.