thoughts

I spent all of the past week doing this: painting a porch that used to be ours until we left it when we moved last January.  We've been staying in Salt Lake all week trying to tidy things up a bit (grass comes tomorrow!).  The project took about three times as long as I thought it would (as it always does) and I have had plenty of time stuck with myself in my head.  It's been rough, I tell ya... (winky wink).

As I painted plank by plank of the fence and porch I thought about a lot of things.  I thought about houses and wondered why some people need big houses and some people need small houses.  I wondered if I needed a big house or a small house, and either way, what color would I paint the kitchen cabinets?  I thought about colors, opaque and transparent, and about all the color swatches in my purse that I stole from Home Depot.  I thought about Home Depot and the interesting people you see there - like the guy I saw that looked like Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid - about a foot shorter than me, had levi cut-off shorts up to his man parts, a very baggy tank top with lots of holes in it, flip flops, a thin long pony tail, and he was balding too.  That was a funny thing to see.  I thought about my backyard, full of weeds, which made me think about Eve and wonder why in the heck she ate that apple.  But then I remembered that she was actually a very wonderful woman and I still like her, weeds and all.  I thought about weeds and wondered how deep the roots actually go into the earth, then I thought about metaphorical weeds and wondered if those roots go just as deep.  I guess it depends on the variety of weed?  I thought about flies and wondered if they exist because of Eve too?  Then I thought about how great it would be if I had a horse tail attached to my rear so I could swat them away from my bare legs.  (Or I could grow a longer ponytail?)  I thought about horse hairs and wondered if my paintbrush was full of them?  Then I swat a fly with it and it died!  I thought about my paintbrushes at home and how I missed them this past week.  I thought about my paintings and wondered if I hated them.  Then I thought about my paintings and wondered if I loved them?  Then I felt very confused.  I thought about this big painting I was creating on the porch and wondered why it looked so bad?  I guess my stroke is a little too gestural.  That kind of thing looks really good in a painting on a wall, but really bad on a floor to walk on.  I thought about floors, there are so many different kinds.  Fancy hardwood floors, floors made out of rubber, or floors made out of dirt.  I grew up in house with hardwood floors but I bet I had ancestors that grew up on dirt floors.  Do you think they were happy too?  I thought about the olden days, whenever those were, and then I thought about the 90's and I wondered why their music was so bad?  I thought about my dad's sunglasses I was wearing, I think those were from the 90's too, and they were also bad.  But more like a bad = rad kind of thing, you know, they were rainbow tinted.  I thought about my Dad and how he taught me to build things.  I thought about the fence that I built, but how it was a little bit crooked.  I thought about building a straight fence around my next home and wondered what color I would paint it?  (Good thing I stole all those paint swatches!)  Then I tried to tell myself "shhh..." and I turned on the Swell Season to drown out my busy mind for a while.

>> Fictionist is playing in Provo Saturday night!  Come to the Velour and enjoy some serious tuneage.  If you don't trust my recommendation, definitely trust this guy.
>> I've got a new BFF picked out for you and her name is Jenn Blosil.  Stop by her kick starter project to hear about her story, and definitely check out the very last video on the page.  Then... you'll probably watch the other two, and then you'll have to watch the first video as well.  It's kind of like falling into a musical quicksand hole, but you get sucked into happiness instead of death.
>> You may remember Jenn from the song she sang with Hum.  Mmmm... it kind of sounds like a chocolate sundae from DQ.