Aaron's Fucking Freckles

you know, i went to LA recently. it was cool. i spent time with awesome people and i took pictures. i should write about that.

i should also knit.

so i just wanted to make a few points in this BRIEF entry that do not have to do with LA but have to do with the fourth trip i just took to the fucking hardware store to buy MORE PAINT that i DO NOT LIKE.

but before i explain that, i wanted to say:

A. i will try the pine cat litter stuff because anything is better than smelly clay. well, "better" assuming my cats like it.

B. i added that caveat ("assuming my cats like it") because i bought the Booda Dome on all ya'll's suggestions and i loved it! however, i discovered -- to my chagrin -- that the dome was the reason Monster started peeing in the hallway. i removed the dome, the hallway peeing stopped. alas.

C. the bin for my yarn is stuffed to the gills, and not small. i have used my non-small cat for perspective. (please remember that i have no viewfinder on my camera, so pictures tend to be a bit off-center.)

thus.



part of No Joy In '06 is overhauling my apartment. by which i mean lifestyle. i do not feel like elaborating on all the steps i'm taking to do this (just yet), but painting my hallway is one such step.
[so is buying a bed, which i did! and then i put it together! and took pictures of the process! omg are you SO EXCITED FOR THAT POST? is that not the very epitome of what we would hope the Information Age would bring us? high-speed access to some crazy woman's illustrated narrative of her Assembling A Bed? yes, yes i think it is. do you hear me, Al Gore?]

actually, i'm just painting the half of my hallway that falls below the chair rail. the part above the chair rail is a very, very pale pink. i wanted the half below the chair rail to be...gray? green? khaki? taupe? some sort of darker, complementary color.

i picked "Aaron's Freckles." i brought it home and painted a tiny bit of the hallway and decided that when i said i wanted a "gray, green, khaki, taupe" color i probably meant it and should not have, on a whim, gone with "rust."

but you can't return custom paint colors. so the next night i returned to the hardware store and selected a beautiful dark, green-gray color called "Huntington."

i painted an entire half of a wall in it before deciding to pour more wine because it was just too damn dark. fuckitall.

so right. i returned, then, to the hardware store TODAY, for the third time in three days, during my lunch hour to get a color similar to "Huntington" but a couple shades lighter.

turns out, when you put it on the wall, "Miami" looks a lot like "the color you already have on your wall." because you overcompensated and went way, way too light.

so you return. for a fourth time. to the hardware store to get the color you'd originally wanted anyway, and it's called "London Haze." and even though it's not really the right color because it's not dark enough, not green enough, not gray enough, not...well...it is still better than a fifth trip.

right?

Comments

  1. wow, i'm the first commenter. i don't think that's ever happened before!! i know i'm a dork. i just wanted to say that all of your posts about the weight thing have really rung a bell for me, like so many others. thanks so much for putting those thoughts out there. and also, about the paint, i feel your pain. the guys down at OSH were really tired of seeing me walking in the door when i painted my house a few months ago. just a though, maybe if you still wanted to go green, but not huntington, you could mix the too light huntington with the too dark and it'd come out just right?? maybe?

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  2. you know you'll have to wean them on to the pine stuff, right?

    they won't just use it right away and you'll end up with MORE pee on the floor.

    my cat used it for a while and seemed to like it. it does help with the smell.

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  3. I would just like to say that I stumbled upon your blog by accident one day and have since fallen in love with it. I'm a twenty two year old college girl, and believe it or not, can really relate to a lot of things you write about. I love your blog so much that I've passed you along to a few of my friends who have also grown to love your writing. I have been meaning to comment on so many of your entries but I'm even shy in the world of blogging so it has taken me this long to get around to it.

    The reason that I decided to comment on this entry is because well, I took the huge step of finally buying a bed frame about six months ago. (Up until this point, my mattress and box spring have been on the floor and it was sort of starting to bother me). Well, six months later, the frame is still in the box. Not only is it still in the box, but my boyfriend made the effort of moving this huge 100lb box out of our room and into the hallway when we (for some ungodly reason) decided to rearrange our bedroom the other night. I casually asked him why the frame hadn't been put together yet (other than the obvious reasons: laziness, lack of space. blah blah blah) and his answer was simply: well, because I know it's going to be a fight.

    The sad thing is, he's right.

    I've also had my share of painting fiascos. Currently, my room is BRIGHT yellow with brown trim and blue doors. It was a great idea after spending three days in Wal-Mart picking out paint, then spending four days painting. And more than a few drinks. Sometimes, my walls give me a headache.

    Anyway, the point of this long drawn out comment is that I love your writing and I think you (as a writer and I'm assuming person, not to sound creep), are really funny and nice. Too bad you don't live in Boston, I could use some girl friends like you around here (does that make me sound like a stalker?).

    Keep up the great work, and good luck with everything. Maybe one day, I'll have a bed frame too!

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  4. ok, got just as far as the cat picture before i needed to comment (i promise to read the whole post after this comment) because:

    i love cats. i really do. but i hate, Hate, HATE how they express discontent! sure, peeing all over our stuff is an effective way of saying, "shit ain't right," but geezus! can't they just grow a thumb or four and smack us upside the head? or even being more tactical in their pee-strikes (ie, peeing on the dome instead of all willy-nilly in the hallway)?

    that is all... [/rant]

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  5. ok, having read the entire post i have only one thing to add:

    a picture of "it was just too damn dark"

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  6. splash some miami into your huntingon and voila.

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  7. Eek,now I feel like a nerd for not knowing you'd already tried the Booda dome. I am sorry that Monster dislikes space-age-looking litter boxes.
    Re: the paint- have you thought about trying a glaze? You could add something in an appropriately gray-green dark color and it might make "London Haze" more closely approximate the graygreenkhakitaupe blend you really wanted. If you want to get really involved(I do not recommend it, but some people like such things,) you could do some sort of rolling or texturing thing to the glaze after you apply it.
    I'm a home decor nerd- if you want any further mostly-unsolicited advice, just drop me a line.
    Good luck!
    ~Rachel~

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  8. I so hear you with the paint fiasco. I recently painted my entryway and one of the walls was painted FOUR TIMES. I started out with what I thought was a dark, regal, purple, convinced I wanted to be bold with paint. On the wall it looked way more 'Go Vikings' purple than what I was going for. Then, I had to paint a sealant over the purple to make it go away. THEN, I chose 'Eastern Amber', which I thought was a nice burnt gold color, but turned out to be way more like 'Goldfish Cracker'. I finally settled on 'Foot Path' which is a nice martha stewart-like brown, which looks great, and is a color I may have decided on earlier, if I wasn't SO SURE I wanted to be daring with paint.

    I say if you are still not happy with the color, go back again. You're in this far, you may as well.

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  9. I'm sure this isn't news to you, but you do know that you can get the small (I think they're quart-sized) paint cans to test the paint colours?

    And also, I'm surprised that any colour named "Miami" is light. Considering all the too-too bright pastel combinations we have competing along all the sidewalks here.

    Good luck with London Haze!

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  10. k, some paint stores (I forget which brand names) also have sample paints, that cover a 2x2 foot square, for you to "test" the color, so you can see what it looks like without covering the whole darned wall. You might want to consider that . . .

    Love your blog!

    Liz

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  11. so, i'm assuming that you are not aware of sample-size paint cans? to, umm, TEST the color? or you can just buy a quart instead of a gallon. as someone who has painted more than i want to, a good idea is to take a color you like and ask them to make it half-strength. same tone, less commitment.

    good luck!

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