i went back to a day's worth of painting before the weekend. jeff's car wasn't in his driveway so i thought maybe he'd forgotten i was coming today, but his door was unlocked and he left a note instructing me to sand his two embedded bookshelves then start painting them. painting is a lot like mowing the lawn. it looks daunting at first, but you just plunge headfirst into it and before you know it, it's done. i sanded for 2 hours, then painted for 3 more. i didn't have the music on, but to keep myself occupied i went over movie plotlines in my head, including the godfather and the more recent kingpin mini-series.

it's funny, i get a flimsy paper mask which does nothing to block out the paint fumes while jeff has one of those industrial strength gas masks with the heavy duty drums on the sides. shouldn't i be wearing the better mask because i'm doing more painting, exposing my lungs to longer periods of unhealthy particles and odors? when i went into the bathroom, the back of my throat was white from inhaling all that sheet rock dust (despite the fact that i had on a mask). one day when i'm old and grey i'll realize that maybe i should've taken better precautions and guarded myself from an unhealthy work condition. when you're unemployed though, you can't be too choosy about the kind of work that you do. jeff also got some painter caps for us to wear, so we don't get paint in our hair. i don't know which is worse though, getting paint in my hair or wearing one of those hats? i wore it anyway, i didn't need to get even more paint in my coiffure, but i wore the hat backwards so i wouldn't lose my street cred.

i was relieved to be back home and immediately took a shower (at jeff's place, i washed my hands with thinner before leaving). the weather was warm and nice, good day for a run, but i had some stuff to do and couldn't fit in an hour to exercise. i was shocked to see that some of my little cups of seedlings outside had been knocked over, either by the wind or maybe an angry squirrel. my one significant insect sighting was seeing an immature bug on my mint plant. i'm not particularly worried, mints, like tomatoes, don't have a lot of pests (mints are probably hardier, tomatoes can get all sorts of plant diseases). my little carrot top that i've kept in a plate full of water is growing nicely as well. no good can come of this though, not like i can regrow the original carrot. however, this is the poor man's plant, it's pretty much reusing what i'd normally discard, somehow i remember doing this either in elementary school as part of a science experiment or i did it at home as a little kid.

for lunch, i had some rice noodle in a broth of homemade beef soup. the stew was in the form of a jello, which i had to thaw out over the stove. there were also chicken feet in the stew, which made the whole gelatin mold look like something from a horror movie. i had it with some dong-tsai and worcestershire sauce.

i had to run some errands in porter square, including going to the bank. i always try to avoid making eye contact with any asian people when i cut through the porter exchange. coming back, i picked up the latest issue of the boston phoenix newspaper. there's a drawing on the front page of the summer guide that i think is really great, kind of encapsulates that summer look, it just says "summer" to me. andrew came home after work, and then maura stopped by. they made dinner, i ate their leftovers (pepper slices in rice, i added some ham because i didn't think it was salty enough). they went out while i stayed in and watched the transporter on pay-per-view. very luc besson, which means plenty of action punctuated by saccharine moments. i liked it though, it was always one of the movies i wanted to go see in the theatres but never got around to it.

one last note: yesterday i missed an entry (since then i've gone back and filled it up, retroactively), and i almost thought about skipping today as well. i think once you start skipping days, it becomes easier to skip another day and so on until you go for long periods of time when there's no updating. for two years i've been churning out content, maybe it's time for me to take a break. i don't want to stop the weblog, i just don't want to write it. maybe i can have someone shadow me and get them to write it for me instead.