I really don't want to talk about this on the podcast because it's so depressing, but I have no problem making all of YOU suffer with me. You see, I decided that my crappy, white, melamine cupboards were making my kitchen look a little boring. The whole, white on white look of the kitchen is just not inspiring to me. I want to COOK... I want to CHOP and SAUTEÉ and FLAMBÉ! But in the white kitchen all I do is make microwave popcorn and fried eggs.

So I used the excuse of having a load of time on my hands (I'm on a 10 day holiday at home) to repaint the cupboards a nice, deep, rich, inspiring shade of chocolate brown. DARK chocolate. Like you'd shave over a slice of cheesecake. Yeah.

I unscrewed them all and began laying them about the place. (in the process being amazed at how MANY of them there are. I swear I counted fifty cupboards) Then I went to the Home Depot and bought the paint, some heavy duty primer, some foam (smooth) rollers, a tray, and some dropcloths. Having accomplished this I returned and set about getting into my grubby clothes and got to work.

After about four hours I had primed all the cupboards. In the process I had a suspicion that the foam rollers were just not fine enough and I may end up laying down paint that looks BUMPY. With nothing to do but wait I decided NOT to go back to the Home Depot and buy a superfine roller, but instead to play XBOX for a couple of hours.

Paint dry, I began laying down the lovely brown paint (Ralph Lauren Tilled Earth or some nonsense) and immediately discovered that 1. the paint was too thick to go on smoothly and 2. the roller was too rough to lay the paint down without bumps. At this point I had to decide whether to keep going, or go back to the store and get the right equipment, and maybe thin down the paint a little.

I kept going. Of course I did.

With all fifty cupboards painted the fresh deep brown colour I played XBOX for another few hours and went to bed. Then after a great following day tromping through the bushes with Gary in search of our lost youth (surrounded by frogs that were terrified of us due to long generations of passed-down tales of horror involving two boys on the farm that didn't mean any harm) and maybe some Morel Mushrooms, I returned home and began installing the (now dry) cupboards back onto the cabinets in the kitchen.

I'd completed most of this when I really paused and had a look.

They were all bumpy. Bad bumpy. Cheap paint-job bumpy. White-trash bumpy.

Ugh. What now? Do I just put up with it? What do I do? Where's my mommy? I decided to immediately play XBOX for a few hours and decide what I should do while blasting the enemy out of its hideouts in the trenches and forests of Ghost Recon. I really spent a long time trying to find a way to accept this awful paint job and just not worry about it, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't. I had to redo the whole thing. That meant getting a sander, some sandpaper, a better roller, and thinning down the paint.

It's now been two more days of my precious holiday and I'm still not done. In fact, I'm procrastinating. That's why this story is so long, you see? That's why this story is so loooong. I'm in no hurry to end it, in fact. I may as well just go on and on and on forever for all I care, because it's keeping me from doing what I know I have to continue doing.

Sanding... and sanding... and sanding... Fine. I'll just do a little more before I finish writing.

Okay I just finished the first cupboard with the better roller and thinner paint.

Hey, it looks pretty good.

I just noticed that our Frappr map now has a built in live chat. Whoohoooo! Now if only somebody were there besides me.

I'm just laying in bed with my computer on the desk. The text looks sideways to me. I had another weird day. I don't want to get into details, but I've hit another crossroads, and this one has hit me in a whole bunch of ways. I've had to let something go today (mentally) that I didn't know I was hanging on to. I suppose I knew it deep down, but just not at the surface— I didn't know how tightly I was holding on to it. At first I was really sad and depressed about it, but then as time has passed today I've come to feel a kind of weight lifting. It's amazing how heavy something can feel, even something that you love. Sometimes it's okay just to let it go. I'm being vague, I know, but I think you can understand what I'm saying. The future is okay, I think. I'm almost looking forward to it. Nomatter how bad things seem to be, time has a way of washing the beach clean. But there's always a little sand left in your crack.