Painting the Closet

Hello readers! I have been off line for a few days. I almost started that sentence with "I am sorry," but then I realized women in general apologize too much, and then I stopped. I read somewhat that proper blog etiquette is to tell your readers when you are taking a break, but this one just sort of happened. I am so rusty I am having to remember how to type, which is crazy frustrating. I digress.  -- Lauren

It is summer here in the great Pacific Northwest, as we are told by the Summer Solstice and not the actual weather, which is gloomy. It was lovely in April and May when the kids were in school, but now it is Sucksville. Anyhow, my kids are home (or were home--Claire Adele left last week for a month at camp) and I have had less time to write. The Boy is having a hard time managing his screen time and I have a hard time telling him to get off his screen while I am sitting at my desk working on a blog. This is the first year he has had so much digital access, and like a kid in the candy shop, he needs to read every meme, see every YouTube video, read every Instagram post and play every game. I feel like the parent with a cigarette dangling from my mouth and a beer in my hand telling my kid not to smoke or drink. Yet, unlike my son, I know the difference between work and play and I feel bad for not writing. Not bad for you, dear readers (all six of you whom I love and adore!) who don't get to read my posts, but for me because I love to write. Yes, this is a selfish blog. It is all about me.

I read a really neat blog post by Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal called Creativity is Like Breathing. In short, people in need to live in order to write. Not everyone is like Victor Hugo who can hole himself up for fifteen years on an island* and come back with Les Miserables. Unlike Hugo in Guernsey, I have been living these past few days connecting with my family.

I also have been painting. Not painting and drawing like Matthew Inman does in his very colorful blog, but painting the walls of my house. Anita** has been helping me and I want to use her up before she finds a real job.

The Boy is tired of me painting the upstairs. "Put down the paintbrush,” he said yesterday while I was thinking of other projects Anita and I could work on before she finds a full-time job. While the Boy enjoys sleeping in my studio office in the backyard (a.k.a. “The Shed”), I think he wants the upstairs of our house back.

Yesterday, Anita and I finished painting Claire Adele's room. I am learning lots of new things about our house by digging in the corners. Her room has lumpy stucco all over the walls. In one corner, there was a part that wasn't stuccoed. I deduced that underneath the plaster was wood paneling circa 1970 under that matches the wood paneling in her closet. Egads. Why couldn't I find the gold treasure in the corner? I complain to Anita about our crappy little house.

“I guess it isn't that crappy,” I say to Anita trying to be upbeat about my abode until I find phone wires that aren't attached to anything. “Okay, I guess it is crappy."

Anita and I painted the downstairs stairs/closet to the basement yesterday. One side of the stairwell has what was once nice v-edge tongue and groove wooden paneling until a previous owner slopped over it with one coat of white paint. The paint didn’t fill the dark cracks and the grooves in the v’s were still the same color as the original wood. The other side of the stairs/closet had unpainted drywall. Both sides were filthy beyond cleaning. Only paint could make it look nicer. Since Anita is willing to do anything, she cheerfully agreed to help me paint the stairs/closet.

What is a stairs/closet? you ask. This is like a German word where I mashed two words together to make one word. Since we do not have a real closet on the first floor for coats and other stuff, we use the landing of the stairwell to the basement as a storage place for brooms, mops and random tools like gardening gloves, a hammer, and a screwdriver. The Boy’s collapsible soccer goal stays there, along with my gardening gloves. When I have guests over, it is really convenient to dump crap (soccer balls and stuff) on the landing behind the door. The basement is unfinished and had a dirt crawl space which is unusable for anything but storage. Technically, the entire basement is a crawl space since the ceiling is about 5’11’’ inches tall, which is okay for Jack since he is 5’10.’’ I have to keep the stairs/closet clean enough so we can go down the stairs when we need to get a new roll of toilet paper or paper towels. The stairs/closet is like the tide on the beach that ebbs and flows—sometimes it is more closet, other times more stairs.

Did I mention we have a crappy house? Really, it isn’t that bad. It is just a little “interesting,” like the distant cousin who can’t get a job, plays too many video games and reads about conspiracy theories on the internet. This cousin might have great stories and can talk about movies and books, but something is a little off about the whole thing, but nothing criminal or evil, so they kind of grow on you but still find them somewhat annoying at times. The same goes for my house.

So Anita and I painted these horribly dirty walls with super primer that covers all dirt*** and then gave them a coat of very pale pink paint I found in the basement which we mixed with the leftover “Old Lace” paint that I used in Claire Adele’s room.

The stairs/closet is too nice now. I thought I’d be happy to see the dingy stairs/closet all bright and shiny, but no. I somewhat regret painting it, in the same sense there is loss when you lose twenty pounds and have to get rid of that great old sweater that was the prefect color and fabric, but it just doesn’t fit anymore. You’d rather not have those extra twenty pounds but you still miss the sweater. The fresh coat of paint hides the oldness and quirkiness of my house, as the plaster hides the paneling in Claire Adele’s room. I liked the fact that that I had a corner of my house that was hidden from public view that was old and dingy, reminding me of what the house was like years and years ago, pieced together in a hodge-podge manner.

* Hugo was actually exiled to Guernsey. It wasn’t exactly a vacation.

** Anita is a recent college graduate who is looking for full time work. She is wonderful and Anita isn't her real name, but if you want to hire her full-time in your global health non-profit, ping me and I'll get you in touch.

*** Wouldn’t it be great if real life came with super primer that covered all of the dirt?