The necessary everyday tasks of life

I can't sleep, despite the fact that it's raining, so I am going to document this.

Quite a lot of angst and strife in my childhood boils down to the fact that for my parents, eating is purely a chore. Something to get out of the way so they can get on with their day. For me it is more important than that - eating exactly the food I want is a source of joy, and being denied the opportunity to eat exactly the food I want is downright depressing. Upon further reflection, I realized that various everyday activities have different levels of importance for different people. So I'm going to write down how I feel about various everyday tasks - pleasurable? a hardship? neutral? - until I get tired and decide to go to sleep.

Eating: highly pleasurable when I can eat exactly what I feel like eating. This doesn't necessarily mean gourmet food, just what my body and my palate want. Not having access to the foods I crave over significant periods of time is very depressing. Being hungry makes me grumpy like a toddler - unfortunately it took me until about the age of 20 to realize this - and can also make me nauseous, which is rather counterproductive.

Drinking (water etc.): always pleasurable. I have a very low thirst tolerance, so a drink of cold water is always refreshing. Slight negative associations with being told to "stay hydrated", but really I'll stay hydrated by myself if left to my own devices with a drinking vessel and a source of cold water.

Going to the bathroom: always a positive experience. I use this time as a perfectly valid excuse for a mental break from whatever I'm doing, and the act of eliminating itself can be quite enjoyable when it is badly needed. This becomes a negative experience when suitable facilities are not available, but that has nothing to do with going to the bathroom itself and everything to do with icky crawly things.

Showering: a pleasurable experience, very relaxing, an excellent place to get thinking done. Negative only when unsuitable facilities are available - see above.

Brushing my teeth: neutral in most cases, a chore when I'm in a hurry or uncomfortable or exhausted

Hair removal: I think it averages out to neutral. The look and feel of having unwanted hair freshly removed is positive, but the actual maintenance work is quite the chore and I have no particular enjoyment of the process. This is such a precarious balance that I put more of a cost-benefit analysis into any decision to change my hair removal routine than most people put into taking out a loan.

Hair care: fraught with issues, but averages out to neutral.

Nail care: pleasurable by association. I've made a ritual of having a glass of wine and reading fanfic or gaming while doing my nails, so it's a perfectly valid one-hour vacation from my everyday duties.

Skin care: neutral, with small bursts of pleasure during particularly effective acne removal

Makeup: as a normal everyday activity, makeup is neutral, but if for whatever reason I don't have access to or am not permitted to apply makeup in a situation where I feel the need to do so, this becomes disproprotionately negative.

Selecting clothing: generally neutral, sometimes positive if I feel particularly pleased with what I get to wear, very occasionally negative if I feel completely displeased with what I have to wear

Shopping: neutral to negative. It's always a chore, but it can be a harmless chore if approached properly.

Laundry: quite the chore, but I have made it slightly positive by excusing myself from several other duties while I'm doing laundry

Dishes: one of my least favourite chores. I make it bearable by doing it in TV commercial breaks or while talking on the phone.

Exercising: a chore, completely negative. Not at all enjoyable. Strong negative associations. If I were permitted to be excused from one everyday real-life responsibility, it would be dealing with icky crawling things; if I were permitted to be excused from two everyday real-life responsibilities, it would be dealing with icky crawling things, and exercising. The only positive moments happen when my joints crack while I'm stretching them in yoga, but that's not at all worth the trouble.

Money management: neutral, but not something I like to discuss because it makes people cocky and smug.

Personal health care: mostly neutral, although phoning up to make appointments is somewhat of a chore just because I don't like making non-social phone calls in general.

Taking out garbage and recycling: very much a chore. I hate doing this.

Keeping up on current events: staying as informed as I, personally, want to be for my own personal needs is quite easy and pleasurable. Staying as informed as I should so that I'm qualified to participate knowledgeably in adult conversations is a bit of a chore, because I have to read articles that I'd normally just skim over. As a whole, this task tends towards pleasurable because I tend to stop when I'm no longer interested.

Commuting: in general I hate it, but I have arranged my life so that it isn't too time consuming and I can read on the way, which makes it lean very very slightly towards pleasurable.

Working: neutral overall. The fact that I have a job that's such a good fit for me is quite positive, but the fact that I have to be in the office and working at given times instead of sleeping or gaming is rather negative.

And, because I'm tired now...

Sleeping: The act of sleeping itself is always pleasurable, especially when I'm permitted all the REM sleep I need and a nice slow wake-up. But lying in bed waiting for sleep to overtake me can be slightly negative.