Why I Was So Tired Last Week

Last Friday, I got home around 1AM and collapsed in my bed. I had a long week at work, with clients screaming at me, and me in turn getting career blues again and severe pangs to leave my company. Friday was a fun-filled day of getting a RUDE ultimatum from my client about something our company needs to do, and then fighting the crowds at Grand Central on my way home. I went to the gym for a little bit to go for a run, and then changed and hightailed it down to Chelsea to see Shortbus. I knew what this movie was about and was kind of expecting to be squirming a little bit at the graphic sex scenes. But really, I thought this movie was a total snooze-a-rama. I just thought it was really long and I felt like the characters were beating their problems into my head with a sympathetic, but very heavy bat. For instance, I just wanted to scream at Sophia, "I GET it. Can we PUH-LEEEZE move on?"

Anyhow, I got home after the movie, and even though I was dog tired, I couldn't really get to sleep. I kept tossing and turning because my mind was just spinning as I was a little buzzed from the couple of beers I had that night, and I was still thinking about everything going on at work. But I had another source of total anxiety that night. My cleaning lady was coming the next day and was STRESSING me out about her arrival. Now, I really like my cleaning lady. She's very trustworthy and works really hard. She cleans in places around my apartment that I didn't even know needed cleaning. The couple of times I've been here when she cleans, she's always sweating after a day of cleaning my apartment like she's gone through about five spinning classes . She also helped me out around my apartment when I got out of the hospital last year after my broken arm, since I was still in a lot of pain for a while and only had use of one arm.

So last week, when I asked her to come over, she asked if I would mind paying for an extra couple of hours because she wanted to do a thorough cleaning to get me "ready for the holidays." I didn't bother to tell her that I wasn't planning on having my apartment be a bed & breakfast for guests over the holidays, and it would still just be me. But I said "Sure."

Then, on Friday, she emailed me some instructions and a shopping list of all these cleaning supplies to buy. Whoa. Some of this stuff I had never even heard of. I went to Duane Reade and was looking around for the stuff. I even had to call her to make sure that I was getting the right thing. She was totally getting me all worked up about this. I felt like I just totally cleaned out the cleaning supplies section of Duane Reade, like I was stocking up for a household services convention.

Well, it turned out great, because I came home on Saturday to a sparkling clean apartment, and I'd take cleaning lady stress over work stress any day.