I am a wild hare with a wild hair. But my hair looks great. (updated 6pm PST)

"There are two expressions, wild hare and wild hair. The first refers to or compares someone or something to the natural skittishness of breeding hares in spring, especially in March (ergo Lewis Carroll's inclusion of that creature in the Mad Hatter's tea party). To have a wild hair (up one's butt) is a vulgar expression indicating an obsession or fixation of some sort. "Wild" in the first instance denotes erratic behavior like that of hares in rut. In the second instance "wild" characterizes a stray or unruly strand whose indelicate lodgment is the figurative cause of someone's perceived mania." John Dyson

All I know is that on Friday, someone said I had a wild hair/hare. I was fastidiously thrashing about my office, filling two blue bins with old paperwork. I became so irritated with myself for having saved all of this – my tb test results (which I update annually) from 1995; years of newsletter originals, although copies are archived in the office and saved on the network; checklists and spreadsheets for processes that have long been completed – that I almost forgot the motivation behind this torrential decluttering. I had determined that I could not work another day in this space with the window behind me. I was going to turn my ginormous desk. And I have this little problem with piles of paper that surround me, a veritable dam against the currents of change. Or desk rotation. I made great progress on Friday, but the job is not yet completed. Like a skittish wild hare, I will be forced to endure the torment of the sunshine and blue sky behind me (blah, blah, blah, sorry it’s cold where you live) for another day.

I do often get that feeling of needing to get something done now. Ellie ribs me about my inability to resist opening a package the second I receive it, even if the occasion is days or weeks away. Once I have a thought that leads to a plan of action, I find it very hard to do anything else before a do that. Wild hare? Or wild hair?

Wild hair sounds gross, especially when you finish the sentence that goes with the expression. But it is descriptive… it’s something nagging and nagging at you that you really can’t ignore.

But sometimes you do… my bathroom has been a wild hair for years now, every time I go in there I am irritated. It is the only part of our house that has remained untouched in the eight years since we bought the place. Everything else just had a higher priority, this is the master bath off our bedroom, no one uses it but us. I’m going to show you something now, and ask you not to judge me too harshly. It’s gross. It’s really bad. This is my bathroom:

And this is Ivan (cue angel chorus),

who is at this very moment tearing that wild hair right from the ass of my house. The whole family is sharing a bathroom this week, and I have spent more time and money at Home Depot in the last 72 hours than I care to admit. But when I get home today, it will be gutted, and by next week it will be beautiful.

I have to say, I never knew I could feel this way about a vanity.

Please send good karma to avoid drywall, plumbing, and electrical issues. Every minute that my phone does not ring is a victory. Talk about a wild hair….

UPDATE:

Here is the bathroom at 5:00 pm

And here are the writing utensils I found in and on and around my desk today: