CLEAN YOUR HOUSE AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW

"You should really make your bed. It sets the tone for the day."
"But how do you know what tone I was trying to set?"

I wouldn't say I'm a neat freak.
I wouldn't say I'm a slob.
I'd say I usually live somewhere in the grey area between the two polar extremes, on occasion violently lunging towards one or the other end of the pendulum.
Lately, I'm swinging towards the neat freak end of the spectrum and for the life of me, I don't know why.

Growing up, my house wasn't pristine. It was lived in. My mother kept the house clean but it was clear children lived there. Unlike some friends, whose mothers insisted I remove my shoes before entering or who were forbidden to come within arms length of PlayDough or fingerpaint, my childhood was appropriately messy. These things happen when your most favorite Hanukkah gifts are from the arts & crafts aisle at Toys R Us... or you hijack your mother's makeup case and give her a clown/hobo makeover... or run around the backyard with your dog until everyone is covered in an inch of mud. My mother insisted this is why hoses were invented.

Yes, my mother had a tough time getting me to make my bed once I was old enough. Truth be told, if I visit my mother's house, even today, I let her make the bed -- and not because I'm lazy. My sumptuous, queen-sized Princess-And-The-Pea bed in my NYC apartment is made every single day. It's just that my mother has so many layers of sheets and blankets and comforters and throw pillows on the beds in her home, added to the fact that I sleep so restlessly while visiting, that the morning light reveals a bed that looks like wombats tag-team wrestled during the night. I simply don't want to throw off her "routine" so I allow her to reassemble the volcanic eruption of mysterious bedding in the prescribed order.

When I was little, clothing was put away in drawers or hung up in the closet. Toys remained in the backyard or in the basement. But around age eleven or twelve, just about the same time anything my parents said or did was unbearably embarrassing, I retreated into my room like a sanctuary, lost in music, and the more cluttered and unorganized I became. I'd say, pretty much par for the course for a pubescent pre-teen.

I didn't get a Sweet Sixteen party; I got a total bedroom makeover -- my room went from being excessively girly and pink and frilly to completely modern and sleek: grey, white, silver and splashes of red. Very rock 'n' roll. (fyi: solid grey comforter with white stripes, matching white sheets with grey stripes -- the exact same bedding Bret Michaels is seen climbing out of in the Poison video "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." True story.) You'd think with a new room, new wall unit, new bedding I would take exceptional care at keeping my personal sanctuary in like, totally mint condition? Um, no.

I'd go through bouts of being organized and anal and very, very clean. Bed made, clothing in the hamper, hair products in their cabinet, album covers and magazines neatly stacked, schoolwork and textbooks kept orderly. And then I'd just get all lazy-assed and let everything go. Piles of laundry knee-high. Bed never made because what's the point; it would just get unmade at night again anyway? Tape cassettes, albums and their covers, posters, magazines, concert programs... crap everywhere. Now, no food, no beverages -- it was never gross like that. Just incredibly cluttered and unorganized. I'd say I could go maybe a week, a week and a half while the room was in that discombobulated state until I'd have a freak-out and declare it time to clean.

You can ask friends from high school. They'd ask what I was doing that night? My answer would be "cleaning my room." I'd lock the door, turn my stereo way up and tackle the task. Two hours later I'd emerge with an armload of laundry and a trashcan of garbage. But my room was once again in perfect order. You could see my carpet. I'd dusted the shelves. Everything was in its proper place. And it would remain like that for about three weeks until the cycle of clutter and messiness reared its ugly head again.

That pattern has, in varying degrees, followed me my entire life. Like I said, I'm not a slob and I'm not a clean freak but my inner Oscar Madison is perpetually at war with my inner Felix Unger.

In college I was relatively neat, at least my first three years living on campus in a suite-style dorm. Someone else cooked in the cafeteria and professionals came in to clean the bathrooms. How tough could it be? I can't say I was quite as neat once I moved off-campus. I did my fair share of cooking; probably didn't do as much cleaning as I could have. Certainly not in the bathroom. But I did an excessive amount of dishes because no one else seemed to. I can't say I really minded; the kitchen became my domain, the bathroom could be someone else's.

Once I moved into the Manhattan, I thought I had a handle on the whole clean/organized thing. I might not have been the best roommate but I certainly wasn't the worst, and certainly wasn't the messiest. My room could look pretty ransacked - clothing piling up (this will never change; I simply need to accept this about myself,) makeup, hair products, jewelry, receipts, money, subway tokens all cluttering up my dressers and nighttable. But I kept it together for the most part.

A week before I inked the lease for my first solo apartment downtown, I was 'surprised' by the announcement that my office was being shut down and I would work from home. I'd rented a studio. This was not a lot of space. I had to set up a full office in the corner: desk, computer, monitor, fax machine, business phones, lamps, files... imagine how much was needed to work from home back in 1997. Really -- I had a fax machine, no high-speed internet, no BlackBerry. It was another era altogether. And I'd say half of the storage in my minimal studio was devoted to all things work related.

It was not an ideal situation however, I made it work. Up at 8. Bed made every day. Coffee brewing. Showered, hair dried, dressed and downstairs picking up the paper and a bagel at the deli. Back upstairs to work by 9:30 and I'd work straight through until six p.m. (except for an odd eight weeks when my boss was on location in Malta and there was simply no work to be done -- I snuck out for a few matinees.) I'd turn off the computer, clean off my desk and 'shut down' the office, returning my apartment to its natural state as my home.

By 2000, real office space was long overdue. The office of a major rock icon should not be run out of my bedroom. Thankfully my bosses agreed. And while I never returned to a real business setting, my office was moved uptown into a luxury apartment, making my home just my home again. First thing I did was redecorate. The building had painted the walls a hospital white and the bright jewel tones I'd carried with me from my first apartment were an eyesore. So they were sent to the Salvation Army and my new bedding was all tan and white, all my accessories solid wood. It was a bit desert, a bit beachy but definitely calming and relaxing. So I thought.

Once my office space moved uptown, my workload amplified exponentially. Quite frankly, the popularity of my boss and his band exploded and it became a 24/7 job trying to keep up. In turn, I spent much more time at work than I did at home. And it wasn't necessarily at the office - between meetings and events, concerts and tours, I was packing and unpacking overnight bags and suitcases, getting up early to make big meetings and coming home late after desperately trying to clear my inbox and to-do list at work. I was never home. And when I was, it was to collapse and sleep. My kitchen was virtually unused. My bed was never made. Clothing was strewn all over the floor. I don't know how I lived like this.

I'm a true believer that the state of your workspace represents your state of mind. A cluttered, unorganized, overloaded desk is the physical manifestation of what's going on in your head. And I believe that goes for your home as well, be it a 4-bedroom colonial or a small rental studio -- what your home looks like is the outside representation of what is happening inside your mind. A glimpse inside your home is an insight into your inner life. So I have to ask, what the hell is going on inside my head these days?

About three years ago, after a major shift in life and career, I restarted with a clean slate. I went through everything I owned, donating lots of it to local thrift shops. I went on an HGTV-inspired binge, painting and redecorating my studio until it turned from a cold, $7 per night room in a student hostel into a warm, inviting sanctuary. Everything about my apartment says "Ilene" now and I've continued to personalize it little by little these past few years.

No, seriously, this is what my apartment looked like in 2002.


And this is what my apartment looks like today.

Seriously, it's hard to imagine it's even the same space.

I'm not a fan of clutter. In fact, I hate it. When I see it, I feel compelled to clean it up, even in the homes of others which, I know, is inappropriate. But too much crap, too much stuff, too much ungapatchkah... I hate it. On the other hand, I'd certainly fail a white glove inspection. But living in a Chelsea studio, let's face it, I don't have a lot of free room. Everything has to have its place and there has to be a place for everything; one thing out of place snowballs into disarray. I live like a flight attendant works on a 747 -- every space maximized, everything stowed and tucked away, but everything at your fingertips.

Lately though, I'm on some sort of insane OCD cleaning/organizing kick at the moment that's reached a new level of bizarre. It began just after Christmas. Maybe it was the impending New Year, or New Decade but my spring cleaning began around the winter solstice.

Tax paperwork is organized, the rest shredded by hand. More purging and donating to thrift shops. In the kitchen, the stove and countertop were scrubbed clean (I'll still only use the stove top burners because I fear my relic of a stove will blow up my entire building.) The fridge was cleaned out and scrubbed, the freezer defrosted. All the contents of my food pantry and dishware cabinets were taken out, assessed, cleaned or chucked, and restacked in an orderly manner. Everything under the sink and under the counter was inventoried and repacked as well. I definitely gained storage square footage (OK, maybe square inchage.) In the bathroom, the tub was bleached and scoured, the toilet too. A decorative mirror, a sweet gift I let gather dust under my bed for far too long, was hung adjacent to my sink and vanity so I can see it everyday.

In my long hallway, new picture frames are hanging, displaying photos of old friends. My closets are orderly, filled with carefully stacked clear bins from The Container Store. My bed is made every morning, complete with shams and decorative pillows and matching throw. (Honestly, I think I've OD'd on house selling programs because my apartment looks like I've staged it for an Open House.) All of this on top of the usual laundry, garbage, recycling, dusting and dishwashing activities.

And those dishwashing activities have seen an uptick because my cooking has increased. All of a sudden, I'm an owner of several cookbooks (all purchased at deep discounts 'cause Mama has a TJ Maxx/Marshalls obsession) yet most of what I've concocted in the kitchen over the past few months involves the very detailed methodology of 'winging it.' Turkey Bolognese. Chili. Baked Chicken. Spinach Ziti. And (for the first time ever, as cook or as eater) brussel sprouts. I've always loved to cook by my tiny little hamster cage of an apartment doesn't really make it an enjoyable experience. God I long for a massive, modern kitchen, not this tiny hole in the wall (complete with throwback mint-green Frigidaire from the Truman years.) Yet, I'm cooking. A lot. And I've even bought new cookware. I have a gift card to TJ Maxx - HomeGoods - Marshalls that's burning a hole in my wallet. I can't wait to wander through long store aisles filled with housewares and kitchen utensils. Who the hell am I morphing into? Apparently, I'd make an exceptional housewife only, I'm don't have a house and I'm no one's wife.

This nesting behavior seems odd to me. But maybe I don't have the full picture in view. Maybe there's a reason I'm nesting. Maybe the universe knows the reason but I don't. Yet.

I'm not pregnant (at the moment) nor do I plan to be in the immediate future but who knows what a year might bring. Stranger things have happened (and much less appropriate people have been allowed to become parents.)

Am I preparing my home to welcome the long-talked-about, always-pined-for rescue dog from the animal shelter? Is all of this to advance the arrival of a pit bull?

Or am I nesting because there exists a job opportunity just around the corner that will have me pulling long hours and/or traveling so often that I need my apartment to look and feel like a calming hotel retreat each time I come home?

One friend suggested I was just bored and was doing this to keep busy. Perhaps that accounts for some of it but I can think of at least 27 things more interesting and time consuming I could do than scrub my bathtub with BonAmi. Same friend suggested it was a sign I was meant to be a professional organizer. I'm not sure that's the message either.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just odd. Maybe I have a touch of the OCD. I'm OK with that. (And maybe it's all just an overreaction to my current fascination with the TV show 'Hoarders.') I love my little hamster cage of a home for now.

(And yes, for all my friends who have listened to me pontificate about my sudden nesting behavior, I will come to your home or office and I will organize or clean for you. For a price.)

So, if you take a look at my apartment, and one's home reflects one's inner life, I seem pretty together. Most of the time. (I need to go deal with the pile of clothing atop my brown leather club chair. See, I talk a good game but some things will never change.)