The ways that some people live, I cannot believe they are the same thinking, feeling human beings as me. In filth and disorder. Not by poverty, or war blown cities. Regular people that you know, you are even related to, that seem put together and well dressed and have a decent job and a car they keep in shape, come home to worse than pig sties. My uncle works at a bank. Drives a ford SUV you might tap your brakes at when driving, thinking it was a cop car. He plays golf on the weekends, and aside from a cigarette habit, is by all appearances a normal man. You wouldn’t know, by speaking with him, or looking at him, or even glancing at the front facing exterior of his home, that inside is what a Hollywood blockbuster set would look like if it was trying to depict a post apocalyptic ghoul’s home.

Ashes just on the floor. The insane dogs hair and dirt covering every surface. The sink marred by black sludge. The fridge leaking onto the floor. I dared not look within. The ceiling above the kitchen table water logged through. There isn’t a place to walk other than the track from the door to the couch. Not a place to sit other than the single spot. The backyard is dirt and jungle of weeds so thick the 100+ pound dogs disappear into it like velociraptors into tall grass. The cleanest thing is the dog’s food bowl. Stained and unwashed other than by tongue.

I’m overnighting to dog sit at a friend’s house, and it isn’t so bad as that. But I think this morning my lungs are full of cat piss. The carpet must be super saturated by it. He did his utmost to clean I can tell. Everything is cleared and has a place. But the bathroom is damp and wreaks of mold. No matter what the floor is gritty. Dog and cat hair and dog saliva and cat who knows what thinly veiled by wiping the counters and a quick mop. The couch would be nice, if it had ever been vacuumed once. I awoke thinking I must have contracted a new and powerful strain of Covid. A strain that warranted such a global response as we got. Only to stumble out into the day and breathe a clean breath of air and feel the dirt and dandruff and ammonia drain down my irritated throat.

I know many others. Who I see often and know them well and think they have their shit together. And you enter their home, and the cracks in their uptight facade become earth splitting. Family I know that live little better than farm beasts. In their own home!

Is the mental health crisis really so bad as they say? Must be.

Am I much better? A little I hope. Those who know me reading might have just rolled their eyes, old roommates recalling my many mis-adventures. To them I say there is a difference between making a mess and living in a mess. If eating kimchi and sun drying tomatoes is too much for you, sorry. I really am sorry. There is a difference between ways of doing things and true, deep, disgusting repeated behavior. I keep a very open mind. I’ve lived with dogs, animals. They do bring a certain level of grime to your abode and understand that incremental allowances add up. Things you get used to.

But when I can feel the humidity change when I enter your house. And my nose is clogged hours after being there. And I feel like washing my hands without touching anything. Your house is gross and I don’t know how you live there.

Sometimes you need to wake up. Self-analyze. Run a sponge over it.

I’ve wanted to post for a while about how very few people have nice backyards. The land you pay your mortgage on, live on everyday, and your (entirely YOUR) little plot to do with as you please, you choose to ignore and let degrade into sand, and piles of trash, or rusted out cars. I truly don’t understand it. But then I thought about how some people keep inside their home and realized the problem is far worse. Beautification and style need be built on a foundation of some kind of order and systems of maintenance. That’s why its usually rich kids that go to art school. They can afford it. So I can understand a work in progress.

What I don’t get is people who have no drive to progress at all. Who are comfortable not just with a un-beautiful environment, not just an undecorated house, but a barely livable nightmare.