March 23
I was off work most of last week, for those wondering why I hadn't updated. At LEAST two of you asked, so that merits a mention, doesn't it? I didn't do a whole hell of a lot, but I seemed busy to myself, doing errands and PAINTING MY BATHROOM* and seeing my grandparents. Sunday, I took them to see The Passion of Christ (The Passion of THE Christ? I guess I could go look, but you know what I mean), with some misgivings. I'd heard that it was tremendously violent but remembered that the last movie we went to see together was Black Hawk Down which was fairly gory, but I guess that if the its some random soldier being shot to ribbons in the name of war it is very different than watching your lord, Jesus Christ being scourged for 2 hours. Maybe.
I was sort of unprepared for the reaction I had. I was raised a Roman Catholic, was married in a catholic church at the urging of family, and have been happily agnostic for quite some time. You all know I loathe fundamentalists (see all of my entries arguing with my newly religious Christian buddy) and like everyone else, I can't quite stomach being told what to do by a concept which is about my stance on following the teachings of The Lord. The thing is, watching the movie, I really wished that I believed. That my faith was a part of my life the way it is with my grandmother. I am envious of people who are able to give over to this unwavering belief that god is up there in heaven, watching out for me and if I live my life in the right way and do all the right things, I will be rewarded. I want to believe that Jesus loved mankind so much that he was willing to suffer crucifixion for our sins. I want to believe in the whole father, son and holy spirit thing, because think of how nice it would be to have the knowledge within yourself that something better was waiting for you after you died. That there is a benevolant protector gently guiding you to make all of the right choices.
I was very moved by the movie. I knew the stories, most everyone does. When you're a kid taking CCD, you learn about the crucifixion in a very G rated way. When you're 9, you don't really think through the implications of the pain of being nailed to a cross, or being beaten into hamburger. Faith as a child is simple. Faith as an adult is difficult. This isn't to say, of course, that the movie gave me any answers, or gave back religious rhapsody, just that it made me think and it made me sad. It made me sad for something I never really had and something I'm not sure I'd know what to do with if I had it.
On Saturday, I didn't have any plans and decided that the thing to do to would be PAINT MY BATHROOM. Here's the thing, next time I get an idea in my head to do something like that, TELL ME NOT TO. Whenever a plan of mine involves going to Home Depot, it's going to end in sorrow. Did you know you have to put up a PRIMER COAT? No, I didn't either. So here's my day long bathroom experience in a nutshell:
1.) Trip to Home Depot. Spend 75 dollars on brushes, paint, PRIMER, spackle knives. Look at shelving.
2.) Go home, take down shelving. Neglect to remove all the stuff from shelving, watch helplessly as everything crashes to floor. Note to future self: remove stuff before removing shelving. Move everything out to hall.
4.) Begin spackling. Spackle madly, flinging blobs of spackle all over self and floor uncovered by dropcloth I smartly remembered to put down.
5.) Eat lunch, wait for spackle to dry (truly, SPACKLE is a fine word!!)
6.) Sand down spackle! Notice that spackle dust tastes terrible and makes hair and skin strange shade of gray.
7.) Prime. Primer is gray? Did you know that? I didn't.
8.) Finish all the walls. What a pain in the ass. Contemplate leaving the walls primer gray. Gray is nice! A fine color!!
9.) Wait for primer to dry. Decide to go ahead with the painting, because I bought enough paint that I could probably do the walls of the entire upstairs, with no problem.
10.) First coat. Cover self in paint.
11.) Wait for paint to dry.
12.) Second coat. Repeat steps 10-11
13.) Third coat. (repeat 10-11. Know that about 8 hours have passed since coat 1. In the meantime, I watched several episodes of the Nanny, part of a truly repellent Mel Gibson/Helen Hunt movie, and behind the scenes at Fear Factor)
14.) Blissful sleep.
That was all fine and good, no major mishaps, right? Well, last night when I got home from work, I decided that I would hang a mirror on the newly painted wall after I re-hung the shelf. I TOOK THE STUFF OFF and hung it. No problems there. Maybe a tiny bit crooked, but not a big deal. Go, me. Then, the mirror. Well, I hung it. I hung it and I walked into the storage closet and I hear a mighty smash. Guess what? Right on. The mirror. Fell of the wall, hitting AND TAKING OUT the towel rack on the way down. I walked into the bathroom to find shards of mirror mixed in with smashed tile all over the place.
Did I mention that I don't have a vacuum? That my sister in law has the shop vac? As I stared down at my glittering floor, I realized that I was going to have to clean it all up with baby wipes. BABY WIPES. After about 30 minutes of cleaning the floor (cutting myself only 5 or 6 times), my bathroom was clean and smelled alarmingly like a baby's asshole.
After I dealt with the mess of the broken mirror, I turned my attention to the lightswitch plates I'd removed. Easy, right? Well, we have two. The lightswitch and a plug next to it. I screw them both back in, plug in my blowdryer and NOTHING HAPPENS. I unplug the blowdrier, plug in my nightlight--NOTHING HAPPENS. I am stumped. I stomp out of the bathroom, giving the bare, unmirrored wall a VERY DIRTY LOOK.
So, to end my fun story of home repair, I hung a print in the bathroom, one that won't slice off my head if it crashes. I plugged my blowdryer in out in the hall and realize that I'd accidentally hit the reset button. I looked at the bulb in the nightlight, and right on, it was burned out. All problems solved.
Oh, and I burned a candle in there, so the baby asshole smell went away.
Home and Garden TV: Want me to host a show?!? YOU KNOW YOU DO!!
the other day - home - email - soon