I lived by myself in this apartment for about a year before She moved in.
We had been dating, we had been sleeping in the same bed, for a long time, though. I always relished the opportunity to stay at her place. It was always so clean. It was so tidy, the bed always made, never any clothes on the ground, all her DVDs stacked tidily on shelves behind her, well, massive television. She had a balcony that gave onto a tennis club, so the water drop sound of tennis balls was another source of comfort, along with what seemed to be the Friday night Barbara Streisand cover night.
I enjoyed it there. I enjoyed the company of her sister, with whom she lived, and the company of her sister's boyfriend, who moved in afterwards. We laughed and we spoke to each other freely and happily. And far be it from me to say that the sister made a mistake, but she decided it would be a good idea to make an escape down to Venezuela with her man, as he was looking for proper work in the SCUBA diving industry. Her sister was fine; leaving like that is a great adventure, and had I the balls, I'd do the same. However, She had a little less in the way of adventure.
Her options were essentially stay in Montreal, and deal with the language barrier, or go back to your parents' place in Toronto. Oh yes, and I imagine my being in Montreal made a difference. Since, apart from anything else, I had an inexpensive apartment, which was relatively close to her old apartment and her places of employment, and damned close to everything you would need. Namely, the liquor store. Which, in retrospect, may partly have been the cause of her taking on a half-bottle-a-night habit. Which was really not so bad, but helped me to downplay my bottle-and-a-half-a-night-plus-whatever-I-could-afford-from the liquor-store habit.
I imagine you can guess that she did stay in Montreal, with a moving day fit for the best of them. I had to get rid of my couches, which were brown leather abominations, 2 and 3 seaters with footrests so loose that they would spring out at you as soon as a sneeze rang out. Eventually, though, the suede sectional we had bought together was all in, and both my bed and my couch were gone.
Which makes this next part a touch more interesting.
She left.
Well, she was leaving, unless I wouldn't mind having her as a roommate.
Well, she was going to leave, but she hadn't found a place, would I mind helping the woman I still loved find a place?
Oh, look at that, there's an apartment just three blocks away!
Oh, would you look at that, she left her Facebook profile on on my computer.
Well certainly this Favid Deddock couldn't be big enough of an asshole to sleep with her in the back of his tour van!
Well certainly she wouldn't make plans to see him while we were still living together?
It was at this point in my reasoning that I was struck with the idea of finishing her packing, and conveniently placing her things quite close to the door. On the other side of it.
I didn't speak to her for 2 days following that, except for a terse message explaining why I was being such a prick.
And then we started talking again. There was suddenly a lot to say, and a lot to be interested by. We talked about work and interests and problems in our relationship. Intermittently, I had the feeling of throwing the fodder of emotion into a fruitless, self-extinguishing fire. So I (rather suddenly) concluded that it would be better for both parties to stop being succubi to each other.
And that's about when the squalor started. While we were speaking, I was unstoppably tidy, I was annoyingly clean and exercised, stayed away from alcohol for the most part. I was reformed.
But fuck did it ever go wrong after that.
3 months. I calculated it. 3 months of not doing dishes or laundry or dusting or sweeping of wiping or mopping.It was bad, but it didn't seem that bad: a little slump, a small misstep. Until I went to see my friend D, whose apartment is always spotless, and his girlfriend constantly cleaning. And I passed out there after a few drinks. I should say that I was also on blood thinners, which seem to work with alcohol as a very effective soporific. But I passed out. At 9 O'Clock. I woke up in the morning feeling very woozy. I made it home via metro, though, and dropped into the depanneur to buy a can of chicken soup. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I get home and seemingly for the first time, I see the dirt and shameful conditions I've been living in: the counters are covered with old tomato sauce, bread crumbs, pieces of cookies and all the garbage that didn't fit into the bin. .The living room, which I never go into usually, is littered with paper bags and Styrofoam containers from delivery food. The bedroom is covered in clothes, dirty and clean. My office is no longer an office but a deeply filthy guest room wherein I was the guest. I had been sleeping on that couch, which, although it was a hide-a-bed, I had slept on as a slightly-smaller-than-me couch, flinging the aforementioned delivery food containers across the the room at the office chair.
I heated the soup by rinsing a small pot that had been holding a mushroom soup for long enough that it had turned rancid, then transferred it to my last clean bowl and ate. I took it to the living room, decided I was too hung over to watch anything. As a great surprise to me, I started sobbing, and all I could think of was: "I'm living in squalor. This is squalor. Squalor is the only thing I can do, and truly the only thing I can do."
And for three days after that, of which the details I will contain, I was quite sick. By the third day, I was mobile enough to clean the floor next to my bed of the vomit which I had expelled.
It was a great week.
The next day (as in the day after I cleaned the vomit I deposited on my own floor) I cleaned my apartment mercilessly. And thus was halted, seemingly, the squalor which has prompted this blog.
Still sick, I washed all the dishes, wiped all the surfaces, cleaned the toilet (which gets extremely dirty when you're bulimic) as well as the sink, then filled two garbage bags with my laundry.
Afterwards, four of those same garbage bags were used to cleanse my apartment of both recycling and garbage. Many trips later, after lemon-scented and honestly entirely too efficient all-purpose cleaner, all was well.
And then for 3 days I cleaned regularly enough that it seemed permanent. Why do they not tell you that it is never permanent? It's always squalor, just held at bay.
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