Kim asks WHERE THE BLOG IS, so you get A STORY I ALREADY DONE TOLD HER.

So, Sunday. I left work, and, having some extra money for the first time in months, treated myself to dinner. I also spent this time converting a Hillary supporter to Obama, so it was not IDLE TIME. No no, I was feeling good about my Sunday night.

Until I got home.

Oh, when I got home.

I discovered Jackson had diarrhea. All over the carpet. And just for fun, Cheshire joined in with some hair balls.

Now, I am mad, but I can not be mad at them. They are dumb animals that know no better. Though I wish they had given me a sign, as I would have stayed home from work.

Anyway, I take Jackson outside to go potty, and I grab a bottle of wine from my car, purchased earlier. He does his bidness, and we go to go in.

Excapt my key breaks.

My key to the building.

Breaks in half.

So I go around to the back door, which is always open.

Except someone fixed it.

And now it is locked.

And while I am pulling, Jackson yanks me in the other direction and the bottle of wine drops on MY TOE and the THE GROUND and shatters.

I hobble around to the front and ring my neighbor, who is kind enough to let me and Jackson in.

So fine. We go upstairs and I start to clean the carpet. Only I run out of carpet cleaner. So I grab Lysol. Which would be fine, but I have Lysol with bleach. So now I have bleach stains on my carpet.

FUCK THIS, I decide. Fuck this indeed. I go potty, flush the toilet, and go to the bedroom to put on my pajamas.

When I hear behind me…

I hear…

Water.

SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH.

The toilet backed up all over and flooded the bathroom floor.

I laid down and cried until it was over, and The Dream Lord mopped it all up.

Man, fuck that day.

I’ve spent the last two days taping this wall. It’s really only one third of a wall, but I am taking it slow. Also, while I am obsessive and meticulous about washing out paint brushes, I’ve been less so about these rollers. So now the rollers are too tough to paint with effectively.

So, I just painted level 1 green with a brush. And Chia was right — this is sooooooooooooo much more relaxing.

And, Kim? Half a gay man? I am all woman, baby.

Complete!

What do you think?

Remember when I told you to remember the tape?

Basic cost of supplies (paint, rags, tarp, mini tray and three rollers, circle, square): $45
Basic cost of painters tape: $45

That’s right. I spent more in tape than I spent on anything else. And maybe I lucked out by already having brushes, but I did have to buy rollers. And why do I say more? Because I am so pleased with the design that I am expanding it to the other wall, to create a definitive demarcation between the living room and dining room.

Oh! And this was my inspiration:

My throw pillows. I color matched them and everything!

(Although the purple looks more perrywinkle in these photos — trust, it matches the pillow. The flash is overcompensating.)

I went with the simple circle/square instead of matching the pillow design for A) Simplicity and B) Femininity, for lack of a better word. All the angles in the room are hard — blocky couch, blocky chairs, straight edges on the bar and side table and TV. Only the coffee table and entertainment center have rounded edges, and by adding circles, I’ve softened the overall look, despite the dark colors.

So yay me.

I diagrammed the second wall tonight, and I have enough paint to do the second wall. I suspect incurring more tape costs, but now that I have perfected my technique, it shouldn’t take as long.

Several people have mentioned it looks like a Connect Four board. I totally see it, though I did not when composing this work in my head. Regardless, here is your update:

Oh, look, now there are two colors!! But now, the flaws become apparent:

I also decide Red does not look as good as Green. This, coupled with the flaws, is mainly due to a change in technique, which I will outline now.

I diagrammed this thusly: A poster board for the squares, a foam planter thingy for the circles. Red was the first color, and I tried shading areas using paper, taping paper, cutting poster board, taping poster board…. As you can see, these attempts failed to create a strong line:

So then I decided to tape. Painters tape, all around the parts I wasn’t painting:

As you can, albeit blurally, see, this takes several tears of tape, because, oh sure, it comes circular:

The tape itself is actually full of hard edges! So now I have to match the straight edge of the tape to the rounded edge of the design. This takes at least three hours for what is, in effect, 2/3 of a wall, and, at any given time, I am only taping 1/3 of the design.

This was supposed to be a soothing, relaxing, hobby, one meant to take my mind off of things. Which is where I here tell you, dear reader, I’ve been working on this motherfucker for over a month now. I only started posting once it looked like it might be something, and now…

It’s taken over my dining room table:

It’s taken over my bar:

And I love my table and my bar! I like having flat surfaces on which to put things the dog can not get to! And I am a fairly tidy person and this mess is DRIVING MY LEFT BRAIN NUTS while my right brain says SHUT IT.

*huff huff huff*

OK, so, two coats of red, two coats of green… how’s it looking so far?