Domestic Sluttery

My eye is twitching, my nose is tickling and I’ve got two matching boils either side of my nose.
And that’s not all. My right hip is a whole inch wider than my left one. How did that happen over the course of a single week? What did I do that was so terrible, that I’m now in such a dire state at the end of seven terribly ordinary days?
I’ll tell you what I did: everything right, that’s what! I ate well. I resisted my beloved red wine. I went to bed early, took vitamins, and drank ice cold lemon juice. I cleaned the loo more times than it truly needed it. Read books instead of watching soaps, cuddled with my babba instead of hoovering the skirting boards and remembered to both put the bins out and pack that bag of dried mango’s my son’s teacher insisted I send into school.
In short people, I was a model citizen and what do I get for my troubles? Smacked about the head with the ugly stick, that’s what.
This makes me feel bad. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m hardly all about the pretty. Most days it’s all I can do to smudge on the eyeliner that makes me look vaguely human and drag a coat over heaven knows what. I’m not remotely glamorous, can barely conjure up the will to shave my legs and frequently forget to pluck my chin hair. But some days, nature renders me from bad to worse and while my standards might not be terribly high in the first place, when my body starts working against me in this kind of boily, sneezy, twitchy, spotty, flaky fashion, a bit of demoralization sets in and all hell breaks loose in my head.
I get a bit cross with the world. I snarl at those who like me and snipe at those who love me. I immediately abandon all good intentions and dally with the notion of taking up a wine spilling, top of bar dancing, hamburger eating, dirty floor loving, floozy kind of existence, just for the hell of it, because then one gets to stumble around the supermarket with just got of bed hair and rude eyes, looking as if one actually has a few secrets and an interesting life. Instead of being the kind of woman who talks about her slow cooker and worries about the damage coconut scented massage oil could inflict upon her spik and span starched sheets.
See the thing is this: some of us were born to be bad. Some of us spend our entire lives reigning ourselves in and taking vows to be good and then just when we think we’ve got goodness going on, our body rebels and declares itself unfit for healthy food and a sin free life. The house gets all weird. All kind of un-lived in. Too neat. The child wanders about looking vaguely mystified by the Mummy who seems to be play-acting the role of the other type of Mummy, the organised, sensible, not crazy, don’t have to apologise for her sort. And deep inside a vague feeling of nervousness beats it’s gentle drum.
So what is this? A call to abandon the good life and embrace the kind of domestic sluttery that could have one thrown into bad housewife jail? An ode to the charm of looking unkempt and rotting your liver? No, not at all.
I was just saying really. I was just saying, some days I look kind of ugly. And an ugly face has me dabbling in ugly thoughts. I was just saying, I think, that all this effort exhausts me, and I really wish I wasn’t the kind of woman for whom the good life doesn’t come naturally…