It’s twue, it’s twue! I was only being half-serious the other day when I said my closet looks bigger on the inside. My emm had the brilliant idea Saturday when we came back to the villa for coffee and presents about making my closet an office. I told her not to talk of such things because I was far too tired to start moving furniture that night, plus the cords would need wend their way from the closet to the outlet on the other side of the wall, plus my dresser needs a good painting, plus plus plus…all sorts of roadblocks. But in the back of my mind, I was secretly thrilled with the idea and knew before the weekend was out that I would do just that. Who gives a rat’s ass about the cords? It’s not like I have a small child or a dog to tangle with them. The dresser isn’t that bad, really and I figure seeing it, and two chest of drawers out and about in the boudoir will get my ass in gear to get them all painted.

After talking to Grafs yesterday for some time and telling her about the entire thing, the TARDIScloset scheme commenced. It was not easy; my beloved desk doesn’t fit through the door, no matter what way it’s turned. There’s just no jackassing that thing, so I had to do with another table that now acts as my desk.

It’s perfect, this TARDIScloset of mine because it’s also afforded me the opportunity to pull out some projects, instead of hiding them away in a cabinet. This way, they’re in my face and maybe I’ll finally put together that second London journal almost a year after the trip.

For now, though, I’ll simply bask in how delightful it is to really have a room of my own, regardless of how absolutely absurd that sounds, seeing that I really have an entire villa of my own.

Pictures of how I’ve spent the last 11 hours and 53 minutes are up at Flickr, even though to call it so is a misnomer; from looking at the photos I’ve uploaded, one might think it’s taken me all this time to paint a relatively small closet (it’s bigger on the inside), when in reality, I spent the first couple of hours putting a second coat on the three walls I painted red yesterday.

As you can imagine, there was the normal futzing around, as well, not to mention having to move everything out of the “it’s bigger on the inside” closet. Then I had the bright idea to remove the closet door; that went swimmingly until I found the one stripped screw. There was no way that fucker was gonna cooperate, so I pulled the door off the wall. Yes, I literally pulled the door free and then I put it in the garage.

My coffee intake today was enormous, almost like a work day, but I actually threw out the last cup because I simply couldn’t stomach it at that time. That’s what happens when one grows up and buys a real coffee maker, one capable of making more than four cups at a time.

My emm and I are celebrating her birthday tonight and I’m due to pick her up in a little while. Nothing special - she wants to go to In-N-Out and I’m not going to say no. It’s amazing how good fast food tastes when you don’t have it all the time.

If I continue to believe my closet is bigger on the inside than it looks, will the Doctor magically appear one day? With a girl and her dog and needing another companion? Please?

And paint. Lots and lots of paint. On my shirt. On the carpet. On my glasses. And of course on the walls, where it really belongs. I’ve uploaded round three of Home Improvements for Amusement at Flickr, if you’re of a mind. The closet will have to wait for another day - perhaps tomorrow, depending on where my motivation level and overall patience fall in the morning.

The old adage, “Practice makes perfect” will no doubt prove itself true again when I do get around to the closet; every time I pick up a paint brush (and yes, I did use a brush all day and no roller), the end result is a bit better than the previous attempt. That, of course, will leave the closet the best looking room in the villa, excluding the kitchen and bathroom. Those two areas may never be tackled. Seriously.

My emm didn’t believe me when I told her I’d used (gasp!) color in the hallway as we walked up to the bank and the UPS store earlier today; I pointed out needlessly behavior proven over and over again - if she tells me not to do something, you can bet I’ll do it. Always have, always will. But when she saw it after our walk, she was pleased with the way it had turned out and wanted to know if I would apply a second coat of red to the appropriate walls. I wasn’t so sure, since doing so will entail the necessity of doing the same in the boudoir. But the green looks so good with a second coat that I may just buckle and do the red, too. Perhaps I should do that on the morrow, instead of working on the closet.

Perhaps I should leave some things undone so I can schedule another day off instead.

Update @ 0612: Nope. Don’t like to rush into anything.

I’m set to tackle what may be the most difficult area at Casa de Mickelodeon to paint today: the hallway leading back to the bathroom area and the bathroom area itself. Notice I didn’t say bathroom - that will be a certain kind of hell, as will the kitchen and as such, those will be addressed at the very, very end of this exercise. I’d planned to do all the prep last night, but after running all day at the factory (and that was after waking up at half past three), I reasoned it would be more productive to get a good night’s sleep and start it all up this morning.

And now that morning has broken, I’m hemming and hawing like mad. Maybe I should upload the tons of screen caps from the movies I’ve been watching lately…maybe I should play around with a new template for Strange Cousin Susan…oh, wait a minute. I did that last night and found a couple I really like, but am far too lazy to make the necessary changes to some things here. But perhaps now I won’t be too lazy, if it will delay the day’s plans. Maybe I should balance my checkbook.

My emm advises me not to paint the hallway anything but white: “If you start adding color on the walls in the hallway, Mickey Glitter, it will do nothing but make the space look very, very small, very cramped.” I’ve already made up my mind, though and there will be some color to be found. I’ve got this crazy angled wall by the sink that I’ll paint red and the area around the “door area” from the boudoir will be green.

Oh, and did I mention I’ll be painting the closets, too? For the love of everything holy, that’s going to be a task perhaps best addressed on its own and not lumped together with the hallway plan for today. The closet is quite involved; I’ve got shelves upon shelves and yes, you guessed it, I’ll be using green and red in there, as well. That, though will be the last thing I’ll tackle today, since I will have to move my dresser out of the closet itself, not to mention a couple chests of drawers and all my clothes.

I suppose the more I put it off, the easier it will be to chuck the whole thing. At times like these, I remember one of the greatest things my dad taught me: There’s no need to rush into anything. It’s a philosophy I’ve taken as my own and hope to pass it on to Star and Bar one day.

There’s no need to rush into anything.

I’ll have another cup of coffee, then.

Here it is…the post I hope will cover the myriad observations, conversations, and situations over the past couple of weeks. Although it will be far from complete, here’s to remembering most of them, at least those not having to do with the factory proper. That may be tomorrow’s post.

By far the most noteworthy and exciting conversation took place just two days ago, at the factory, no less. A customer called to teasingly yank my chain about some pieces he’d picked up and then segued into an almost one-sided monologue about wanting to take me to lunch…to meet his sister. Yes, you read that correctly. He wants us to meet because, and since I expressed it so wonderfully in a recently sent email, I will shamelessly quote myself now and hope I don’t break any copyright laws:

…I nearly dropped the phone. “We’ll go to lunch one day!” he exclaimed. “She’s a really neat girl, Mickey Glitter and I think you’ll really like each other…you do know what I’m talking about, right?” I noised some sort of affirmative sound in the back of my throat and he continued, “I figure, if she’s going to go down the road she’s going down…well, never mind. I just want to make sure she knows some good people. And you don’t know how much I care for you and blah blah blah…” That’s about when my ears turned off and I just kept the phone to my ear. It might just be talk, but it might not be. Even if it is, it’s the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time.

Maybe I should have left that bit for the end of the post, seeing that it really is the biggest event in my life over the past fourteen days. Isn’t it traditional to leave the best to last? Onto other happenings, Home Improvements for Amusement continues: I broke down and bought a real. grown-up. coffee maker. today. It has a clock and can be set to brew so a nice, fresh pot of coffee is ready when I wake up. This may be more difficult than I’d like it to be, since I’m waking up anywhere between half past one and three every morning. I’m glad to have the extra time back, since my over-all productivity is increased, but I really wish I knew how to sleep until at least eight or nine on the weekends…

The Library File Fiasco has been corrected (this is my oh, so clever name for the recent digital clusterfuck I got myself into) and I’ve got about 95% of my computer back to the way it was, albeit with a hell of a lot more disk space available at the end of the day. There’s still a backup program I need to download, plus a firewall utility, but as far as software, that’s all I’ve left to address. It’s another story completely with iTunes, though. Thankfully, my music is all on an external hard drive; my many playlists, though are not and right now are only available on my iPod. I spent some time this morning importing my more popular playlists to iTunes, but I haven’t gotten them all quite yet. I’ve decided to go this route to keep iTunes a little less cluttered than it has been. When one has over three thousand songs on file, it can be a bit painful even just to look at the list.

I’m continuing to work through quite a few movies I’ve downloaded over the last couple of years. So far, the sweetest find in my collection was Swing High, Swing Low - and only because of my recent discovery of and subsequent semi-obsession with Carole Lombard. I went through the same thing very recently with Merle Oberon and Myrna Loy, but my obsession with Merle Oberon lasted only long enough to get me through The Scarlet Pimpernel and Wuthering Heights. On the other hand, my DVD collection now contains almost as many Myrna Loy movies as it does Honor Blackman.

And while I’m on the subject of movies, I have absolutely fallen for Buster Keaton, hook, line, and sinker and no mistake. There are quite a few of his films in my collection, as well and I’ve watched all of them, or at least most of them. Is it fair to call Limelight a Buster Keaton movie, when his was such a small role, so small you’d miss it if you went to get more popcorn? After I read his name in the credits (do you think I would study the DVD packaging and figure it out long before I even put the DVD in the player?), I watched impatiently for the precious few scenes he shared with Charlie Chaplin. And although there were two, maybe three, seeing those two legends of Hollywood perform together for what I’ve read was the first time…ever…made even struggling to find something redeeming about Claire Bloom’s character worth the Herculean effort.

More to follow on the morrow, an hour later now that daylight savings time is kicking into gear. God, I detest this government regulated time change. Maybe I should move to Arizona so I can free myself of it.