dirty grout and all

i'm sure at one point the grout on my kitchen floor was white. there is some, scant, evidence that this was once the case: if you get down on your knees near the garbage can (though oh god please don't) and dust away the scum of a thousand years you might catch a glimpse of white. everywhere else, though, is jet black.

since moving here in august, this kitchen has been my particular bane. i adore a kitchen. my old kitchen was (i now realize) a special kind of amazing. i lived in it. i cooked, every day, in it. it always smelled good. it was shiny.

so you're thinking, katie, yeah your new kitchen sounds gross; clean it up. well, herein lies the problem: the scum is now beyond me. bigger than me. i've surrendered.

on my flight back to nyc after christmas, i think in an attempt to not cry into the seatback in front of me, i hatched an elaborate scheme to scrub, clean, sanitize the apartment. i come from a particularly obsessive tribe of cleaners: dirt and grime our mortal enemies. we vacuum often, we sanitize things, we don't like piles, we attack bad smells, we bleach, we organize.

when i landed, sleep deprived and homesick, my first move was to go to the drugstore and stock my artillery: rubber gloves, bleach, three sizes of scrub brushes. this is how i deal with stress.

so i started in the kitchen, scrubbing the stovetop, cleaning the inside of the microwave, wiping down the cabinets. then came the floor. i have a very narrow kitchen, so i didn't have the chance, nor a reason, to see under the cabinets prior to this moment.

let me tell you, friends, there is a special breed of scum that grows in new york city that our dear, dear pacific northwest, even with all of its moss and mold and wet, will never, ever, EVER compete with. i think it's probably a given that after 250 years on a tiny island with 8 million people, some shit is bound to accumulate.

i get down on my knees on my kitchen floor and find that there is no longer a 90 degree angle between floor and wall, but rather a gentle slope of grime and grit from floor to cupboard bottom. i breathe, i grab brush, i go to work. after about two hours of scrubbing, it remains. it is impenetrable. i scrub, i douse with god awful chemicals, i mop, i repeat. and still, the scum.

disheartened, i have retreated. i have no further plan of attack. it is a mess i cannot conquer. and so, i continue to avoid my kitchen. heartbreak.

this is one battle in several that have seemed insurmountable since arriving in this city five months ago. it's impossible to conquer everyone else's dirt and bad habits and crappy attitudes, so you just retreat. i think this passivity is something that most people here praise: you give up the comforts and the little things to just LIVE in the GREATEST city in the WORLD. or something to that effect. i have yet to discover the rewards of this sacrifice. instead i've found it to be mostly numbing and claustrophobic.