the.com/housekeeping
The art of pretending entropy isn't winning, one load of laundry at a time.
means The regular work of cleaning, organizing, and maintaining a home (or, by extension, the routine upkeep tasks behind any system or organization).
from A straightforward compound from house + keeping, with 'keep' carrying its old sense of 'to maintain, tend, or look after' — the same sense in 'keep house' or 'keep a garden.' It's been in English use since at least the 1500s, originally naming the literal running of a household, before it drifted into its modern figurative use for the unglamorous maintenance tasks behind any operation — tidying ledgers, code, or paperwork instead of floors.
- meeting usage
- admin trivia announced before the real agenda starts
- etymology
- literally keeping the house, since the 1500s
- dirty secret
- dust is mostly dead human skin, forever regenerating
- casino term
- the house's cut, never the player's