On Painting*

Whether buying or renting, painting the interior of your house always seems like a good idea. It can make a room seem more vibrant and home-y. Best of all, one have lots of fun with the paint choices to add little quirks that perhaps the house doesn't have and to reflect one's personality a bit. Plus, everyone loves painting. It's great. You can write funny things on the wall and paint on your friends. Except, no, painting sucks. The idea of painting is amazing. But painting sucks.

I somehow forget that painting sucks even though I've done it enough to know better. It's like how a woman's body released chemicals to help her forget that childbirth is a taxing and painful experience. Andrea and I just bought a house together (OK, she bought it because I'm a deadbeat with a lot of debt) and the entire thing, inside and out, is white. Just looking at those bare walls filled our minds with possibilities. What colors do we want? Do we want to do an patterns or lines around the room? Should we paint the ceiling? If so, should it be the same color as the walls?

We came up with color ideas for the boy's room first and went to check out swatches. After grabbing more swatches than we would ever need (and spending a good twenty to thirty minutes looking through them) we returned home to mix and match in order to find the colors that best complimented each other (people don't put nearly enough value on whether or not the colors are nice to one another). There were times during this process that it felt like we were planning a heist, taking every contingency into account. "If we use this color, then it we can't use this one, but we can use this one which doesn't go with this one, which I really like. However, if we use this one, then this one, this one, and this one are all in play." It's ridiculous and time consuming and I can totally see why someone might paint their entire house one bland color because it's so much easier. And, of course, all this strategizing come with the knowledge that, while these colors a nice on a small piece of paper, they will look completely different covering a whole wall or even a room.

Now we're ready to buy the paint except we only have a rough idea of how much we need and a solid idea that we don't want to buy too little. We (Andrea) just bought a house and, having done so, just put down a considerable down-payment. Lord knows we don't want to spend too much on this project. We buy what we think we need and head off. The fun and excitement were imminent.

It's not that I forgot that you have to tape along all the areas you don't want to get paint on. It's that I forgot how annoying it is getting the tape to line up perfectly along the corner even though the wall isn't entirely straight across. And we get to do this twice! Because you need to put (at least) two coats on every surface! And since we have a textured wall and ceiling, the tape doesn't sit flat at all points so the paint seeps under slightly which makes the exercise seem vaguely futile. But we do it anyway.

In addition to the taping prep, there's also the patching and sanding of every little whole the previous resident put in the walls. I'm not sure what the son did in his bedroom, but it looked like he was throwing darts at about two feet up from the floor. This process also entails removing the ugly, ugly curtains and their settings which were screwed in in wildly inconsistent and inconvenient manners. Were I not so level headed, I might have just ripped them off the wall out of frustration.

Once things are all taped, there's a sense of relief. Now I can get some real painting done! Just after I get every corner and edge with this small roller/brush. Seriously, but the time you get to the fun, eventful, and efficient painting, you're ready to quit. One hour to prep, one our to corner, fifteen minutes to fill in the rest.

Of course, painting the ceiling is it's own bit a fun. Our ceilings are eight-ish feet tall. Too low to require a ladder and just high enough to put strain on my back. A wrinkle is added with painting the ceiling, too: gravity. I don't really notice the tiny bits of paint that occasionally fly off the roller while painting the walls, but when I'm painting right above my head, I can't help to because the either hit my face, glasses, or my eyes. True, I could be wearing goggles, but who thinks about that when buying paint supplies? And, because I'm an idiot, while I was walking around, looking at the ceiling and painting, I forgot where I was in the room and stepped right into the paint tray. Not only did I make a mess, but it was the last of the paint and I already wasn't sure if we'd have enough to finish the room (after I poured the spillage from the plastic on the floor back into the pan, we did). At least Andrea learned a lesson: if she ever hears me yell "FUCK!" she should always bring the camera with her just in case my shoe is covered in green paint.

By the time the second coat is going on, resignation sets in. The process sucks, but you'll be done after this coat. Except without decent lighting (we don't have decent lighting) it's nearly impossible to see where you've already painted. I spent most of the time with the roller in one hand and my phone-as-flashlight in the other. A situation that isn't ideal for painting a ceiling.

None of this would be remotely as bad if it wasn't for one mitigating factor: we have a two month old baby. If there's anything that crushes productivity, it's a baby (even now, I have to pause my writing to give him some attention). He turns a two person effort into one. I know it's not ideal to have a baby around paint and we do our best to isolate him. Put him in another room with the windows open and a fan on. We're using low VOC paint. But the boy has demands and sometimes those demands take a good forty-five minutes to meet and then ten minutes later, he wants more. Doesn't he realize the faster we get this done, the better it will be for him? Also, yelling "FUCK!" is a sure fire way to wake a sleeping kid up.

We're about a halfway to two-thirds done, and the place is starting to look great. And soon I'll go back to forgetting about how much painting sucks and enjoying my new home. And maybe then we'll tackle the outside.

*Pictures to come later.

Devil

Remember when the above trailer first popped up in theaters? Audiences laughed at the appearance of M. Night Shyamalan's name. I distinctly remember titters in the audience when I caught the trailer. But laughter aside, I've always been a little bit intrigued by Devil. Generally, I'm a huge fan of entertainment that takes place in a confined space and the onset of paranoia when bad stuff starts to happen. At no point did I expect Devil to be good, but at the very least, I thought it would be fun. Even though I was intrigued by Devil, I never made an effort to see it until a coworker of mine and I agreed that we'd both watch it. He watched it months ago and has been giving me a hard time about not holding up my end of the bargain. Finally, I gave in.

Devil got mixed reviews at best and it's not surprising why. There's little redeeming about the characters, there's ridiculous narration thrown in to explain events in the story (given by a tertiary character), and the movie is entirely predictable. And for a movie about five people stuck in an elevator, there are way too many characters. The filmmakers try to fit so much into Devil that everything suffers, but worst of all, the ending makes no sense at all (embarking on spoilers).

I won't say exactly which character is the devil, though it's fairly obvious from the beginning, but after involvement in killing off at least five different people (most of whom we're told have a history of crime or being bad people), the remaining person in the elevator confesses to killing to people in a car crash and driving away (those two happen to be the police officer-in-charge's wife and child). At this confession, the devil says, "I really wanted you!" and disappears. Now, I'd have to imagine that this character must have done something else bad in his life if that's the only criteria for the devil killing people. Otherwise, why would the devil have no qualms about killing everyone else and not continue with this guy? It doesn't make any sense. And why would the devil "really want" this particular person? Everything about this ending is stupid. There's no sign that the devil would let someone go because that person confessed to one particular sin that is probably one of thousands.

Even if we keep that ending, as flawed as it is, Devil still could have been salvaged. I first learned of the term "bottle episode" from Community and I think Devil would be much better if it adopted that approach. First, get rid of everything that takes place outside of the elevator. Once the characters are in it, the camera should never leave them. You can still have the voice over the PA and people trying to help them, but the viewer experiences things like the trapped people do. This way, when the guy falls on top of the elevator, we're just as surprised as the characters. With this approach, we can also get to know the characters better because we're not splitting time between them and rescue efforts. Tension can build slower and the viewer gets more claustrophobic. Alliances can shift as everyone become more paranoid. Hell, one of the characters can even be an audience surrogate.

There honestly is a good movie to be found in this concept. It's a shame that the filmmakers couldn't see it. Oh, and even though M. Night Shyamalan gets the "Story by" credit, he basically stole the structure from an Agathie Christie story, "And Then There Were None," and freely admits she inspired him. So, if he didn't actually write Devil and just "came up" with the story, doesn't that really mean that Agatha Christie should get the story nod? Or at least a story nod?