You really need a system, if you're gonna do it right. You can spend 3 hours cleaning your house and not get anywhere if you're not organized. Worst case, you'll wind up even messier than you started, with all the previously-stored junk out in the middle of the floor! My plan for cleaning is methodical like the U.S. government. When you've lived with someone like me as long as I have, you get good at these things. Also like beauracracy, my cleaning program is held up by countless competing priorities. It seldom happens that I've got nothing better to do than neaten things up. If there's time to lean, as the little caesar's employee manual says, there's time to clean. Well, I don't spend too much time leaning these days. Since I live alone, I'm the only one who benefits from my house being clean, and that's too small a return for the constant upkeep. It's next to godliness, I hear, but god and I haven't seen eye-to-eye since the fiasco with the tennis balls and the all-girl Christian academy.

Miraculously, I found the time to get 80% of my house up to standards with your typical, garden variety yuppie. Coffee table with small stack of magazines ("Jazz Times" on top), check. Watercolor art (painted by mom. Hi mom!) check. Leather sofa with matching loveseat or armchair? Uh... half-check. Another thing that's low on the priority queue is buying furniture. Same reason. I can only sit on one chair at a time, it turns out. Anyway, back to work. Leaning time is over.