Let me provide a brief definition of the word “cunt” to clarify its appropriateness in this context: It’s a schoolyard word meaning “arrogant, solipsistic whore with the impulse control of a pubescent boy and the moral repugnance of a man who places more value in his cock than in his wives, mistresses and the people he was elected to serve.”
Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you what I got crossed off my to-do list over the last few days:
I updated my address on my driver’s license. When rendered in seven words short enough that even Newt Gingrich could understand them, it doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment. But since I live in Chicago, it involved Internet searches for locations (two near my office) and what kind of documentation I need to bring to change my address on a government-issued ID (no information found) and trips to both locations because the first one had a 45-minute wait behind the entire cast of Deliverance. The second location bills itself as “express,” though I got through half a New Yorker article on spiders before I got to the front of the line. And though I brought my checkbook, my first mortgage statement and a letter from my insurance company as proof of my new address, the woman behind the counter just typed in the address I said out loud to her: 1234 Nick Lachey Street
I finished painting the bedroom. And by “finished painting” I mean “got the worst of the project out of the way.” We painted the walls a rich, mossy gray-green and then measured and taped off foot-wide (more or less) vertical stripes that I (because by this time the boyfriend was on a four-day trip for work) painted a pearlescent version of that rich, mossy gray-green. The finished effect is quite stunning, and the pearlescence shifts from greens to golds to deep browns depending on the angle and the light. But with the dark walnut floors and the rich greens and browns on the walls, the white baseboards, trim and doors look like gym socks under a tuxedo. So now we have to decide if we want to find a neutral cream color for the trim or dive in and paint it all a darker version of the wall color. Decorating is hard.
I can’t find my camera (or my stash of New Yorker back issues to read on the train, but we still have about five unopened boxes to dig through), but I did snap some pictures with my low-quality camera phone so I could send them to the boyfriend in his non-stripe-taping-or-painting “work” reverie. But since you’re here, I’ll share them with you as well.
Taping stripes is a huge, ugly job involving measuring, math, plumb bobs, swearing, the dawning realization that no corners in your house are anywhere near 90 degrees, and a time commitment roughly equal to one of Newt Gingrich’s marriages:
Once all the tape is up, though, painting is a relative breeze. (The white rectangles on the wall are the post-it notes where we did our math. And our swearing.) I find that since each stripe is framed in its own little finite universe of low-tack blueness, my painting progress is more readily measurable than when I just slap paint willy-nilly on a huge wall:
Since my camera phone has a grasp on reality rivaling that of Newt Gingrich, the colors in these pictures seem more in the baby-poop family than their true olive-and-moss nature, but here’s a shot of the final product:
Here are the stripes in daylight. You can readily see what I mean about the sweat socks:
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