Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
I came dangerously close to a full-frontal freak-out last night. I walked in the door of our new house and saw the colors that Dre and I had picked out on the walls and realized that gah: I HATE THEM. The green was awful, and that darker blue? Terrible. What were we thinking?
Then I walked into the kitchen and realized that gah: it was filled with half unpacked chaos boxes vomiting flatware and towels and bags of lentils. There were so many boxes I couldn’t even get to other boxes. Agonizing.
Then I tried to make a phone call and couldn’t get the phone to work. Then I tried to make a cell call and my reception was shitty.
Then I almost lost it.
I was saved from the brink by the amazing Andreas who suggested we go buy some new green paint (eating $100+ in wasted ugly green paint, oh well), and then he said this: “I could work on painting while you unpacked the kitchen. Unpacking might help you regain your sense of order and control.”
Oh, the sweet sanctity of order. I spent two hours unpacking and arranging the kitchen and with each hello kitty cup and tea pot that went into the cabinets, my sanity inched closer. Jesus. I guess I really am a control freak. Oh: and praise the heavens for my amazing Andreas. He always knows how to fix me when I’m verging on broken.
Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, is in bookstores now.
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mark
April 27th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
This maybe useless, coming so late and all, but my mother-in-law has the best advice for paint: pick the color you love and go TWO SHADES LIGHTER. It’s worked everything we’ve tried it.
Terry
April 28th, 2005 at 6:29 am
I know most places around here allow you to return paint and trade it in for a different color/shade if you get it home, try it out, and decide you can’t stand it. you should try that so you don’t have to eat $100 worth of ugly green paint…
Maria
April 28th, 2005 at 9:36 am
I would say that you just needed to exercise your Taurean sense of calm and order through inventorying of worldly possessions. (Okay. And probably you’re a control freak, but there is no foul in liking things just so).
As for the paint…. it’s probably not a very big relief, but at least it was only $100ish. And now you have ugly green and blue to mix with other paints! Whee!