Vertical and Horizontal

The other day I was struck by the difference between the way that Sid and I approach housework. He’s very clear about the fact that he doesn’t feel called by it. I, on the other hand, like seeing things clean.

The other day muddy footprints mysteriously appeared on the carpeted stairs leading up to the bedrooms. We both looked at them and agreed that they should be allowed to dry and then be vacuumed. Since they were Sid’s he eventually got the vacuum and removed the caked mud. But he did only the exact spots. He didn’t do the whole step. As a consequence, each step had a clean spot in the middle of other dust and debris. When I complained about this (I never said I was perfect), he replied that he had done exactly what he set out to. He had cleaned up the mud. And he was right. From his point of view, he had performed what he promised and I was churlishly criticizing the job he had done.

That’s when I put a name to our differences. Sid is doing what I call vertical thinking. He sees a problem and focuses in on it with laser precision. No other problem exists beyond the one he is addressing. I am doing horizontal thinking. I look at the problem in the context of what is going on around it. It takes me more time to do things and Sid believes that I am too easily distracted. Instead of focusing on the mud alone, I’ll look for dust on the rest of the stairs, the wall of the stairwell, the railings, and even the plants on the landing. From Sid’s point of view, I am grossly inefficient. From my point of view, I am thorough.

I think in some ways this difference in attitude carries over into how we look at life. Sid has infinite, vertical patience doing his woodworking, and his model railway in the basement is a masterpiece. He sets himself specific goals and focuses on them until he is satisfied. As a writer, I think horizontally in metaphors and allusions. I write when inspiration hits and may stay up all night if I’m on a roll. Sid would like me to be disciplined to write from 8:00 to 12:00 and then take the rest of the day off. In fact, at a dinner we attended the other night, most of the men agreed with Sid. The women were more likely to favor writing at night after everyone else has gone to bed (and probably taken their needs to sleep with them).

Even now in writing this late at night, I am dealing with the cat who thinks that she should be fed and wants to sit in front of the monitor with her head on my hands as I try to type. The vertical solution would be to deposit madame in the hallway and shut the door. The horizontal solution will be to give her some food and spend some time petting her until she tires of the game and probably bites me. I’ve found that cats are very good vertical thinkers.

I don’t know if this is just something about how Sid and I work together. Or whether housework is just one more example of the differences between how men and women like to do things. Although I love generalizations, I know there are always exceptions and that there are loads of women who think vertically and men who think horizontally. Maybe in some situations we all do some mixture of both. All I know is that the next time the house needs spring cleaning, I’ll do the vacuuming myself.