I’m procrastinating.  I have a lot of cleaning to do today and precious little time, but I’m writing this instead.  I’m in my room, on my bed surrounded by a sprawling mess of my stuff.  I really need to clean it all because I’m getting a new roommate.

We’re getting housemates.  My sister’s family is moving in later today.  That’ll put the population of the house at seven adults and one child, one feline and one canine.  (And an undetermined number of crickets, roaches and spiders that don’t dare show their carapaces if they know what’s good for ’em.)

This is far from optimal, obviously.  It’s dire economic times for all of us and consolidating living spaces seems to be one of the few remaining options.  But living with other people always has its challenges.  This is looking to be extra difficult as the “other people” are family.  Roommates usually have at least some consideration for each other.  Family… well, my family… whoo boy.

We’re all pretty stubborn and we all dislike changing our habits, and of course we all have wildly different habits.  We have different schedules, different expectations, different standards for cleanliness, different appreciations for noise/quiet.  But we hold in common a not-particularly-terrific approach to problem solving and communication that tends to involve crankiness and occasional yelling.  Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.

On the roommate – that was my idea.  Otherwise the niece would have to make the TV room her bedroom.  That was awkward for me (I like doing my ‘toon viewing in the middle of the night), and seemed really unfortunate for her.

But that means I should really clean my cave, uh, our room.