at 11am i was back in cambridge, with plans of actually dabbling in some colors going around in my head. unfortunately that color was white ceiling paint, but it wasn't primer for a change. i had some cereal first, which is now becoming my daily morning ritual. it's only a matter of time before i have cereal for dinner, the always convenient, always available fast food. the fact that i eat the kind of cereal that's heavily fortified with sugar might need some reevaluating. for once i didn't have to run any errands, today i'd be totally focused on painting, no distractions. i was in a great mood, had some music playing from speakers connected to my ibook receiving some internet broadcasted salsa channel. i was smiling, literally dancing around the room, clapping, getting in a good painting mood. i popped open a can of benjamin moore white, soaking up that sweet paint aroma. i started with the foyer, then the coat closet, followed by the living room ceiling, then the hallway, then the storage closet. i've heard good things about benjamin moore paints, but this was my first time experiencing what others have been raving about. maybe it was the fact that there was already a primer coat on the ceilings, but the benjamin moore white went on the wall like butter, hardly any dripping, fantastic consistency, went on smooth and fast. after i do a "room" i'd climb on the ladder and fill in the edges with a brush. there were a few spots on the ceiling that had primer streaks, and i was hoping the benjamin moore would cover those area up, but they still poked through, too late to do anything about it. the ceilings are 99% perfect though, after i was done i could almost see my reflection in the shiny new coat of paint. although there was no dripping (the paint was thick enough that it didn't drip), i still got little microdroplets of white paint on my face from staring up at the ceiling while using the roller. on more than one occasion i even got a fleck of paint in my eye, which would sting momentarily before dissolving away in my tears. i looked like a smallpox victim when it was all over, my face, my glasses, covered in litte white dots.

midway through covering the living room, i got two phone calls. one was from drake, apologizing for being late, but that he would come over from north station right away and help me do some painting. the second phone call was from the appliance repair service, they said they could send someone over tuesday for the 2nd half of my repairs. i told them to reschedule for wednesday. i'm lucky they're coming back so soon because the range started to make that clicking sound again even though the starter module was replaced. it's got to be something to do with the knobs. hopefully replacing them will fix the problem. i had to dig underneath the range and pull out the power cord to keep it from clicking.

drake arrived as soon as i finished the storage closet ceiling. i haven't seen drake, my former "boss" at screen house, for almost two years, and neither anyone else, he sort of went into a self-imposed exile. he shaved off his beard but he still looked the same, just younger. i showed him the house and we spent a lot of time just chatting about what we've been doing the past two years, the prospect of finding freelance lingo work, and of course the screen house - past, present and future. i filled him in on every single piece of screen house gossip or news that i had, and for some reason i seemed to know a lot. who had skeletons in their closets, who liked who, who hated who, sort of like the E! hollywood story version of the screen house. he shared some secrets of his own, free to tell now that he's no longer associate with the company. it was a warm fuzzy walk down the nostalgic path of memory lane. in between chatting i finished the ceilings of the two bedrooms (including the bedroom closet) and drake helped me do the edges, saving me about an hour's worth of work.

i decided to drive drake home back to his marina abode in charlestown after we chatted away close to 9pm. before leaving though, i had to show him what i was hiding in the basement, the sacred artifact known fondly as the screen house foosball table, very much beat up but still full of memories. what we remember about the screen house might be gone, but here tonight in my basement were two physical embodiment of that once glorious company, drake and our foosball table. i told drake during our chat that we were all lucky to have experienced the boom of the dot-com business, and that i feel sorry for anyone who missed it, didn't catch that brief revolution in history where dream companies came true and having fun and working were the same thing.

tomorrow morning i will not only talk the talk but i will walk the walk as well. get ready for some colors, that's all i have to say. the moment of truth has finally arrived. we will see if the colors i picked really do work with the house or not.