This has been a positively awful news week on both personal and global levels for very many people. At some point I shut off the computer, walked away and vowed never to return. I threw the newspapers directly into the recycling bin without reading them. Still, shitty news has a way of finding you.
I make no secret of my distaste for the word ‘gratitude,’ heck, even typing it made me throw up a little bit in my own mouth. But, I know good fortune when I see it. This week, I’m fortunate to be distracted by a house that needs to be ready for move-in in about three weeks.
While I was ignoring the news this week, I got handy.
PLEASE ignore the heinous green wallpaper and leopard-infused border and focus instead on this brass masterpiece.

I was ready to remove it and throw it up on Craig’s List, when I put this pic on Instagram and asked for advice.
My fabulous friend, S (I promise, if you knew her, you’d call her fabulous too. I do not exaggerate) told me to spray paint it. She directed me to several sites of people who do this sort of thing for fun and then write about it. Do they write about it to inspire or to make the rest of us feel like we have been blessed with a lack of creativity and two left hands? I’ll never know.
My first inclination was mint green, which is, in my opinion, the world’s greatest color. But then I thought better of it. I need something that I can live with for a while. My second inclination was white, which is always my backup. But I was talked into matte black by Bennett, who has an opinion on everything.
Here it is primed:

and then DONE:

A few notes:
1. Spray paint is not fool proof. For some of us, nothing is fool proof.
2. Do not make fun of your son for accidentally spraying himself in the face with spray paint, thinking he was holding it the right way. This is a sure fire way to guarantee that you yourself will do the same thing minutes later.
3. If you stand under a light and spray paint UP, little bits of spray paint will rain down on you.
4. The building permit guy told me that he once had an unfortunate incident with JUST FOR MEN hair dye and that Sea Breeze removes paint from your face. This was good to know.
5. If you give your boys a can of spray paint each and tell them to have at the basement, you will never be sorry. (If they turn a room into a knee hockey rink and paint HOME AND AWAY on opposite sides but spell it HOME and AWAW, you should know that it is remarkably easy to turn a W into a Y.)
6. I ought to limit the amount of things I do myself. This has always been true.