I painted yesterday – not pictures, mind you – doors and walls. Light-hued first coats over dark surfaces look really bad, but you can always say, “It’s the first coat.” I could just leave it like that, the way I used to leave the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the room . . . “Oh, hi, you caught me while I was housecleaning.” HA! I’m not much into this great-looking house thing since I have to do it myself. On the other hand, I don’t want to live in a house that looks like a model home – nothing in those places but a bit of furniture and throw pillows. And not always the pillows. If you got locked in that house, you could go crazy trying to find one thing to read or one thing that gave you any other feeling than that of being locked in a sterile box.

I want things – usually my things –  about me, but things avalanche and dust bunnies hide behind them and it takes TIME to be constantly wiping up the kitchen counter and herding everything back into place. I am not the border collie of housekeepers.  I am the junkyard dog – on a good day.

So, I don’t know if I am going to paint today. Maybe I should get a Wagner power paint spray thing and go at it like a commando. I have actually pictured that. Unfortunately, the fantasy involves a prior step – getting everything out of the room. So I have to log in to the scenario of a line of people walking through, each picking up one thing and exiting. They stand outside until I am done and then they come back in in reverse order.

If I could get over my squeamishness about crawling things, I would imagine a horde of housecleaning army ants marching in each night and taking care of things. I tried imagining little elves or the creatures in “Batteries not Included” but they took one look at the place and stepped right into my fantasy and gave me “the look of you’ve got to be kidding”. It is disheartening to realize you have pushed elves to that point; they really don’t like to have to throw in the towel. Well, actually and technically, they do . . . like into the laundry and so forth. I am speaking in what we call “just an expression” and they have to, throw up their little elf hands and throw in the towel when they come face to face with my world. Usually they are sorry to have to do so and most times just gently drape it over my face and quietly file out with their little heads lowered in pity. I, AmeliaJake, gave  their lingo the expression “to drape the towel”.

I may put out the dropcloth again today; I am going to think about it for a while. And I think I’ll just lie back while I think so hard.