Domesticity

shiv5468 's remark about being naturally untidy made me think about my own tendencies regarding tidiness, and I'm afraid I'm a naturally tidy person. I don't like cleaning, mind you, in fact I hate it, and so I get someone to do it for me 6 hours a week, but I just like living in a tidy flat.
I think it has got lots to do with the way I perceive my flat: I honestly don't mind whether it's in Paris, Vienna, Ankara or Kuala Lumpur, so long as it's mine, the impregnable fortress I return to after work, my personal space into which I don't let anything or anybody I don't want there. I'm very much a cat person, and I'm very similar to cats in that I often prowl my flat, just feeling the mine-ness and wholeness and closedness of it. It's where my books are, and my piano, and my CDs, and most importantly ze boyz. So long as this personal realm remains safe and whole, I feel that nothing and nobody can really upset, harm or damage me. I know that this attitude is due to certain bits of my personal history, which I'm not overly keen to disclose, and I'm also very aware that externalizing the feeling of total safety and invulnerability into something as essentially fragile as a building does have its problems. Anxiety is never very far away, and I don't mean the fear of losing any material possessions. If, for example, my flat was burgled, I certainly wouldn't be happy to lose my jewellery or my notebook. But the idea of somebody intruding into what I consider my very own, that's what gives me the creeps. Merely thinking of coming home to find my door broken, and ze boyz missing, makes me shiver. The thought of being unable to protect what I love and care for, that's what it all comes down to.
Considering that this is how I feel about the place I live in, I don't think the desire for tidiness is overly suprising. I'm probably very fortunate: if I didn't dislike cleaning so intensely, and if I weren't such a lazy person, I'd likely be a compulsive cleaner. Thank god for small mercies...

On a lighter note, and speaking of cats, one of the things I like about cats in general and ze boyz in particular is that they're creatures of habit, but that they change those habits without discernible cause or pattern. Take favourite sleeping spots, for example: they'll sleep in the hammock on top of the scratching post for weeks and weeks, and then, suddenly, it's the fluffy blanket on the sofa, and the hammock remains orphaned for months until they suddenly rediscover it.
Sometimes, those inexplicable changes make for pleasant surprises. Such as today, when Lucius - usually very affectionate as far as head-butting and back-scratching is concerned, but decidedly averse to being picked up - suddenly jumps onto my lap and lets himself be cuddled. And by cuddled I don't just mean civilized back-scratching, oh no. Real cuddling, as in lying on his back in the crook of my arm and letting me nuzzle his ears and rub his paws while he's purring like mad and going completely boneless. That was really nice.

And, still in the spirit of domesticity and enjoying a wonderfully relaxed weekend: Yesterday I sat down at the piano for the first time in well over a year. Call me stupid - which I probably am - but I have difficulties overcoming my inhibitions: the walls and ceilings are so thin, and I hate the thought of the neighbours listening to me stumbling through a piece. But yesterday I thought, to hell with it, I know (thanks to the lack of sound insulation) what music they're listening to. Being fans of türkpop (don't ask, it's truly horrible), they wouldn't even be able to distinguish whether I hit the right or the wrong key. Hopefully this indifference to the neighbours' nonexistent musical sensibilities will last.

One can't play the piano all day, and so I watched DVDs, too: No Country for Old Men, which was faboulous, The Quiet American (loved it) and The End of The Affair (didn't love it quite as much, but it was still a good movie. It had Ralph Fiennes, nuff said.)

And now a belated breakfast, I think, and then some more musical torture for the neighbours...