Setting the right tone

Lately, I have been spending a lot of time at home trying to make it look more like a home where people live instead of a tornado-stricken danger zone....IN VAIN, of course...but I have been trying...

Thing with me tho (as I believe with a lot of other ppl)is that...I believe that proper cleaning can only happen with the right music. Without that, cleaning is not cleaning...because essentially, cleaning is a therapeutic process. One sorts through his or her mental files and reorganizes them according to the recent changes in life...filing a conversation with a friend as one scrubs the kitchen counter...highlighting the gossip as one rearranges the spices in the shelf...weighing ones options while sorting out old bills...that sorta thing. But all this can only happen with the right music in the background. Without that, one has nothing to distract them from the weight of the thots whirling in the head and there is the danger of letting them get out of control...ensuing in a possible full-blown panic! Ohmigodddddd...did she really mean that I was looking good today? Or did she imply that I FINALLY looked presentable?? Was that a hint of sarcasm I noticed? If only I remembered how she sounded...

You see?? Perhaps u dont...and perhaps its only me. But I stand by my statement. Without music, cleaning is not cleaning. But what I really want to share with you is this strange realization I had the other day. It only happened, of course, coz I was listening to the wrong music, as you will see.

Well, there I was, one evening after office washing my dishes (My maid ditched me..or I think I made her ditch me coz I was too lazy to get up and open the door...for a week...)I was happily scrubbing the dishes and piling them in one corner of the sink...trying to hum along to this really sappy romantic song...going along the lines of "Oh..how happy I am that you're in my life..." Well, I didnt particularly like the sound of tht one, so I went over and tried a coupla others...and I was getting more and more irritated as I progressed from one song to another. The CD had all happy-sounding Caribbean music. "Therez a boy in my mind...blah blah blah, blah blah blah", and then " To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees/Come and dance every night, sing with a hula melody." This is the kind of annoying music that gets stuck in your head and you find urself singing this at work when you're photocopying a whole bunch of nonsense...and if its a really stupid song, you might even be lucky enough to have your boss walk in on you. Besides, it was too happy and goody-goody for me to be able to just wash my dishes and feel good about it. Perhaps if I had been on a beach trying to hula-hoop after the correct dosage of pina coladas...I might have been more partial to this music. However, any serious practitioner of cleaning therapy will tell you that this kind of music is absolutely detrimental to one's mental health. Even Russell Peters would agree with me...and let me assure you, he is of a sound mind and his every word is taken very seriously!

So, after a few choice expressions to vent out my irritation with the music and my dried up dishes, I patiently shuffle through the CD and find the perfect kind of songs. They go something like this "And now I know I want to kill you/like only a best friend could/Everyone's caught on to everything you do/Everyone's caught on to.." and

"Dont want to grow up
I want to get out
Hey!
Take me away
I want to shout out
Take me away" (this ones from Freaky Friday OST, by Christina Vidal...very good)

Ahhhhh!! Bliss...therez nothing like angry music to help you get your chores done. All that anger and rage, that swirling emotion and energy just bursting out from you channelled into scrubbing and washing...gawd,wat a release. They're are amazing to sing-along to...you dont have to try to hit any high notes or try to sing to any tune either...You cna simply scream with the chorus...the louder the better!! Best thing is, you have a fast-paced tempo to work to...your broom can move to the beat...its a beautiful symphony. Swish, THWACK! (u little ant, how dare you enter my home..)whip, wham, blam! Voila..you've got a sparkling clean home...and then, after all that work...I finally fresh up and go to sleep...humming "To the left..to the right..."