Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept
And you’d better accept–or else.
Because you need to stop cleaning.
Take off the gloves, put down the bleach, and throw open the windows. Your floor can be vacuumed tomorrow. Your bed looks better mussed. Your dust bunnies need a place to live, and scrubbing your dishes clean just means you’ll have to scrub ’em again tomorrow.
Stop cooking.
Drop the ladle, put on your shoes, and go out to lunch. Walk to the Italian place down the street. Order a glass of wine. And then another. And then that chocolate cake with the melty ganache inside that oozes out onto the plate when you fork into it, running it through the melted vanilla bean ice cream and shamelessly sucking the spoon clean.
Stop doing laundry.
You can go a day or two without underwear, and Febreze works wonders. The ironing can wait. The folding can wait. Your hamper loves having clothes in it. And nothing bad’s going to happen if you wear that shirt to brunch three more times. It’s nearly summer, and in case you haven’t heard? Bikini bottoms were meant to go under skirts.
Don’t go to bed at a decent hour.
Stay up late in your neighborhood pub, talking to Seymour–an 82 year-old Vietnam veteran who paints wall-sized portraits of lemurs–and playing the 1991 version of the board game Aggravation. Or ignore the clock on the wall, watching Some Like it Hot and trying your hand at soldering jewelry, melting bits of metal and watching the molten copper splash against the newspapers you’ve so responsibly laid down. Go swing dancing. Learn the lyrics to a rap song. Memorize your favorite paragraph of your favorite book. And fall into bed content. Quiet. Creatively spent.
Give up responsibility.
Because all work and no play makes you hate the idea of waking up and trudging through it all again. Because you’re exhausted from doing what’s expected all the time. Because you’re an adult, not a robot. And it’s time to shove your stomach full of flutters and your body full of bliss.
Now hop to, you dynamic sumbitch.
The world is awaiting your rightful and raucous return.
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