Galactic Destruction

Earth fought fiercely. I annihilated it all the same. The rings of Saturn were unable to defend their planet. I destroyed Pluto, too, just for old times’ sake. By the time I was done even the sun was gone. No trace of the Milky Way remained save for the ruined detritus scattered in the wake of each planet’s destruction.

Man. I kind of feel like I should have saved that opening for a Galactus comic or something. The less-epic reality is that Caitlin and I painted some rooms in our house over the long weekend and, in order to do so, I had to scrape off of the walls the sticker-esque planetary decals that our home’s prior owner had put up for their little kid. The removal process involved scraping the decals off in microscopic increments – by the end, all the force and friction had dulled and reshaped the edge of my scraper. The whole thing was a real pain in the ass. Well, not the ass so much as the thumb, which – for the record – has not yet regained full feeling since it’s heavy use in Friday’s seven-hour Planet Destruct-A-Thon. In case I’ve not made it clear enough: it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience.

The painting got finished, though. The office, library, living room, and first floor hallway of our (relatively) new home all got a fresh splash of color.

As with any tedious physical task of duration, I found myself wondering – both as I was scraping away the planets and as I was painting – if this was the only thing that I had ever done in my entire life and if it was the only thing that I would do for the rest of it. Life outside of any monotonous task seems impossible, the task endless. And yet here I am, alive and no longer scraping or painting. Victorious. And actually, there is a surprising sense of victory here. I feel like I achieved something this weekend. Our house looks different, better. Then again, I also have essentially no memory of the last 48 hours seeing as they were all spent doing the same minute and mindless motion. So you win some, you lose some, I guess.

Most importantly: my feet are sore from all the standing on tip toe and what have you. Time to kick ’em up. I’m looking forward to not painting again for some time.