I've gone down hill, microorganism wise.
I started out as pretty much a clean fanatic, though I have to say that even then I couldn't measure up to Chai and Mismi. But I tried. I loved (and loathed) having my first apartment, the one with the inherent cockroach problem and the playmate of the year in the duplex past my bedroom wall. She's the one that shot her husband recently.
Back then, I used to set my hair, use eyeliner, the whole schmegeggy. A life of much upkeep. Cologne - given to me by others, since I can't smell worth a fig.
(past history - a childhood friend from NYC visited in LA when we were thirteen. I'd never seen so much makeup in my life. I still think eastern u.s. women are more involved in makeup. I didn't take daily showers until I was a midteen - cultural change.) Point being that setting my hair and using eyeliner et al was a new phase.
Well, anyway, my next apartment, searched for by driving up and down west LA streets for a few weeks looking for signs, was golden. It was a second story flat over a spanish style house. Close to all sorts of interesting places, including work. I lived there for seven years. Got into mild renovation with my landlord's consent. The place always looked swell. Landlord liked me, so the rent didn't rise over all those years.
But I left there to try some adventure. I still worked at my realworld job, but rented a two room place in an iffy art studio building at the beach. Had friends with garages store some of my stuff. That was funky. (One of the Kipper Kids showed up in the hall to see if I'd give him a lipstick to use in the performance theater they were doing..)
Moved to a large old eagles lodge, where friend and I had a gallery, studio, dogs, and theater people and boyfriends, and tried very hard to keep it clean. But my standards started to melt.
Bought a house with one of the theater people. Immediately renovated it to what it already was, an old beach cottage. Kept house clean most of the time.
My boyfriend/house co owner arrived with cats. Thus followed the allergy years. He swept, etc., and I organized everything and wiped down shelves. Even that sent me into allergy tharn for a few days, cat dander and mold, I assume, Venice being often damp.
In my background, that real life job involved me being a bacteriologist/immunology research tech. The lab of course had to be clean. So the last thing I wanted to do when I got home from work was clean shelves.
My standards melted some more - one level for work, one for home. My mate wasn't all that interested in upkeep either, as any kind of routine. He'd get into it when it seemed like a good idea to him. I took on the garden (many times). We had spontaneous clean the house up days.
The house mate became my husband and life barreled on. I left the medical world to see my way into art and design, and got nineteen hour days busy. My tidiness decreased.
Years went by, including divorce and moving. All along I've followed bioscience articles - which leads me to say that I'm really interested in that microbiome project BBB just posted about, as it fits some of my past reading.
http://able2know.org/topic/178507-1
I remain confused - I think the people in the article are for the most part right - but I was educated about terrible plague, and many microbiological scourges over centuries.
It remains that I think of a clean counter as an aesthetic thing instead of a health point. Unless I have a house full of immune deprived folks. Or Ebola comes to town. I worry about modern agriculture production.
<pass the bucket>
can't bear to use soap that other people have used... ever!! ack - no way, no how, no chance)
