Yesterday I was due to meet with someone I'll be collaborating with in the future...and we were going to discuss ideas, etc, and then go the Flower Show, where I hoped to pick up some wonderful new silk flowers, for use on future sets, and maybe even a few live plants, depending on how much "left over cash" I had, after hitting the silk flower shop.

It all sounded very straight forward, and enjoyable.

The first step, of course, was cleaning my house.

So I got up at 6am, (that was not part of the plan, but that was when I woke up, so that was when I GOT up,) and took a leisurely bath, read a hundred pages or so of "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins, and ate a sandwich. ("The Woman in White" makes EXCELLENT bath and breakfast reading, I must say--particularly very early in the morning, as your senses are heightened then, and the combination of a piping hot bath, eating breakfast, and reading a Victorian thriller is delicious. )

Having finished getting ready, I was ready to tackle the house...and after getting over a little mental tussle involving me suddenly deciding I didn't FEEL like housecleaning, and that what I REALLY wanted to do was look up "procrastination" online, (it turns out there's some really good stuff about it online, too! ), housecleaning galloped apace. So to speak.

I washed and dusted and vacuumed (goobye dried flower petals on my studio floor!), repotted an orchid (why then, after having put it off for about three years, I'm not sure--but it needed to be done, and I did it!), scrubbed, did laundry, and moved all the unnecessary icons from a week's browsing, off my desktop, and into a folder labeled "desktop". The receipts that were shoved into my bedroom when my neighbors visited were piled up and put in a "you're going to deal with ME, tomorrow!" pile, and progress was made very rapidly. I was congratulating myself, because I'd made such excellent time, that I knew I'd have almost an hour free to walk downtown, and pick up some fresh flowers from a street vendor, as the finishing touch on everything.

Until.

Until I got to the point where I was working on my dressing room and the bathroom...and that's where things started to fall apart.

Y'see, I'd finally gotten around to buying toilet paper, the night before. I'd meant to, earlier in the week (see last journal! ), but kept forgetting, on my lunch hour, and was too worn out, on the way home, to bother.

I suspect there was also some passive aggression going on...because I really shouldn't have HAD to have bought toilet paper...because when I mentioned running out, in my last journal, I hadn't, actually REALLY run out--I had 5 rolls left of one of those monster jumbo packs--but they had been ruined, by an Unfortunate Plumbing Incident, a few weeks before. It was around 2 in the morning when it happened...and I was in the middle of a long-distance argument on the phone, with my Sweetheart (don't ask me what it was about now, as I don't remember--but it was terribly important at the time), and I was so mad, that, while talking, I decided to clean my dressing room counter and sink, using dampened toilet paper, and chucked wad after wad into the toilet, then flushed.

Oops.

I am only grateful that the water involved was clean, rather than otherwise, because it turns out that the cute little plunger that had been left with this apartment, is not, in fact, a TOILET plunger--but a sink plunger. And its primary shortcoming was NOT the fact that the plunger part was really too small for a toilet, but the fact that it's handle was TOO SHORT...and no one, however evenly tempered, likes to be sticking their hand in a toilet at 2am, after having been interrupted in the middle of a clanging row!

Anyway, I was so frazzled after unclogging the silly toilet, that I decided to ignore the water on the floor, and go to bed, where I fumed for an hour or so, before finally falling asleep.

In the morning, naturally enough it was all dry, so I swept, and mopped, and all was well...only I didn't stop to think that the plastic wrapper that toilet paper comes in is NOT watertight...and that apparently, all the water on the floor was handily soaked up by the 5 rolls of toilet paper!

So when I "ran out" earlier this week, it was an unpleasant shock--as it LOOKED like I had 5 rolls left...and it was only reaching in to pull one out, that I realized that what I had, was three waterlogged, then dried, and now slightly mildewy rolls...that no amount of optimism could make usable.

Which is why I think I was probably being passive aggressive, in not replacing them, right away.

But ANYWAY--

--the point of all that is, I had FINALLY purchased a new jumbo pack, and it was sitting next to the toilet, waiting to be unwrapped, and put away.

Also, in the bathroom, on the floor, was a precarious stack comprising: a smallish, oval, gold box, that holds my cotton balls; a long, flat keyboard box, filled with eyeshadow, various colors of concealer, blush, loose and pressed powders in many shades and eyebrow powders; and balanced on top, a medium Victorian looking box, filled with lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, false eyelashes, lipgloss, and about 8 bottles of microfine prismaglitter--one of them, with a "trick" lid.

Why were they stacked on the floor of the bathroom, instead of under the sink, in the dressing room, where they belonged?

Because I'd decided that since I was meeting someone for the first time, I ought to do a little more with my makeup than I normally do--which meant using a bit of concealer. And concealers are kept in my client makeup boxes. In the bottom one.

And what is more natural, when getting to a "bottom" box, than stacking them nearby, in reverse order? Which is what I did. I didn't put them back right away, because I was going to clean the dressing room later anyhow--so why not wait?

And when I needed to vacuum the dressing room carpet, what could be more natural, than picking up the stack, and moving it a couple of feet over--onto the uncarpeted, and already cleaned, bathroom floor?!

In between all this, I had decided I needed to water all my plants, so I'd grabbed the large, gallon container plastic jar that I use, and toted it all over the house, refilling as necessary. The last stop, with a full jar, was the bathroom--where I needed to attend to a philodendron.

After watering the philo, I set the jug down on the toilet lid, where I would be sure to pick it up, and move it back to the kitchen, on my next trip.

So that's the scene. New toilet paper--to the right side of the toilet. Precariously stacked boxes, full of glitter and things that roll, directly in front of the toilet. Almost a gallon of water, on the toilet lid.

Any sane person, on viewing this, would've said, "Ah-ha! This is a dangerous set up! I should put those boxes away right now, then move that water back into the kitchen, where it belongs, before opening the toilet paper up, because tearing open plastic often involves violent arm jerkings!"

I am not, however, THAT sort of person.

I figured that opening the toilet paper first, was best, since it meant finishing up one job, without leaving the room.

So I leaned over the jug of water, picked up the package of tp, and ripped it open.

Only as I ripped it, I managed to nudge the stacked boxes, and they began sliding...

And since I'm very calm, in this sort of situation, not prone to panicking and tossing things around (this might be because I'm often IN this sort of situation!), I coolly shoved my leg over against the boxes, to keep them from falling. And then leaned down with one elbow, to ease the continued downward glide of the topmost box towards the floor...congratulating myself on my "coolth", even while berating myself for my lack of foresight, I set the opened toilet paper package down, next to the toilet--and the second box suddenly slide to the floor, bouncing open, hitting the side of the toiletand spilling lipsticks, false eyelashes and glitter everywhere. I made a last ditch effort to grab it before it hit the ground, and whacked the jug, which promptly dumped water all over the toilet paper.

The piece de resistance, was the glitter bottle with the trick lid, which had managed to bounce on the toilet, and spill out fetchingly over the toilet, and yes, onto the toilet paper, which was, of course, ruined.

*sigh...*

Cleaning up took a while. I expect to find bits of glitter winking at me from unexpected places for the next year or so, as glitter never *really* goes away...

I then found myself faced with the unpleasant fact that my guests were arriving in 30 minutes, and a trip to the nearest CVS would take me *just* 30 minutes...but what if they were EARLY???

I thought wildly about going down the hall to ask my elegant neighbors if I could borrow a roll of toilet paper...but simply couldn't bring myself to do it. A cup of sugar's one thing...toilet paper is something else entirely!

There was only one thing for it: I had to call my guests, and tell them that I had to run out, and might be 5 minutes late for our meeting. And yes, I had to tell them WHY, because otherwise, it would just be *too* rude, to go out at the last minute like that!

They were gracious, and offered to come a half hour or so later--which seemed a good idea, given my luck this last week...and in the end, I got the new toilet paper without mishap (although it seemed rather bizarre to meet not one, but TWO people, on my walk into town, who were asking directions to the Seaport Hotel--where they were holding an ADD conference), and my guests showed up in good time, and the meeting went well, and the trip to the Flower Show went well (I DID find lots of lovely new silk flowers and greens--including some simply AMAZING long willow branches, and the most realistic silk roses I've ever seen), and the day was a rousing success...

...but I REALLY hope that this is the end (if you'll excuse the pun) of my toilet paper travails!

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Footnotes:
One of my favorite entries, in my all-time favorite blog - Creating Passionate Users. Prepare to be challenged by it!