Painting Day

First thing was to paint a stain blocker on some mold under where a potted plant had been. Actually. first was hearing that we've aquired yet another Carter. A watercolor that was painted as a final study for an oil painting. He often did this. The painting is called "Tidewater". It's being over-nighted from California. The stain blocker needs to dry for an hour. I had to go the hardware store and get roller covers. This is a very difficult office to paint, two big windows, tight quarters, and a monster desk (must weigh 800 lbs.) that D and I swore to never move again. We left room to paint where it comes closest to a wall, but it isn't easy. Since I'm only painting two walls and because of the dropped ceiling and the plastic baseboard, there is an enormous amount of cutting in edges. I only tape the baseboard, everything else I just cut in carefully freehand. I like doing it, it's an imperfect science, in that it's quite difficult to paint a straight line. I'm not the best at this (Herbert, bless his soul, former designer at the Cape Playhouse, was the best, I don't know who is now) but I have painted many thousands of feet of cut-in lines, and I'm pretty damn good. Nice to get to the actual painting part of this, but you have to do the prep work or it don't mean a thing. So I cut edges for a couple of hours, with a couple of breaks outside for a smoke. I rolled the rest of the surfaces in half-an-hour. Finished just after four, D'd had to leave early because Carma's car had lost it's transmission, so I have to stay and close up. The footprint of a brush and a roller are completely different, and your greatest fear, at this point in painting a room, is that the difference is going to be noticeable. Reds are impossible, but this Lavender Lane is fine, it's done in a single coat. It's a really good paint job and a really awful color. But it's Pegi's office, and she's the boss. It hurts my eyes. But it dries out very close to perfect. It's vibrant. I still have to paint the window casings, and they're very deep and stepped, probably take me most of the day tomorrow. I need a list, of course, for the upcoming festivities. I should be able to finish insulating the rim joists on Saturday, which is projected as a 'nice day' but then Sunday night and Monday the bottom drops out, daytime highs in the twenties. I'll get it done. I pretty much have to; I need coffee and more juice, I have enough tobacco and papers, I probably need more whiskey. I have days and nights of stockpiled food against some imagined famine, I keep grits and dried beans in a tin-foil lined cannister. I don't remember what the context was, today, something about being unfaithful, and that woiuldn't have been merely, like a number or something, a tattoo.