My bones sang 'done' before I could even get off the ladder. Even though the notes were a bit premature, I let them come anyway. Only when the tape was down and the first coat of touchup paint was applied did I really allow myself to think 'done' and mean it.

Even now, the word is still debatable, but my relief is not.

Do interior painting even once and you learn the dance: tape up, paint up, tape down, patch areas of missing color with new wall color, patch areas of new-color overspray with the trim color. Get off ladder. Sleep.

Almost there, kid.

I started yanking the tape down in earnest at seven-thirty tonight, and within thirty minutes the striped Medusa pile lay in the entranceway, ready to grab the pants leg of anyone who ventured too close. After the tape was down, I picked up the bucket of red paint and began to clean up lines made ragged by the tape's removal.

Funny how sometimes the things you dread and put off don't even bother to live up to how difficult you thought they'd be.

Databases were like that for me, once; I woke up one day and said, "It's time," and cracked open my books and studied up and about two days later, I realized at least three-quarters of my fear and doubt went away the moment I transmuted worry into action.

"Cable knitting? But I don't know how to do cable knitting..."

Plane tickets present a definitive endpoint for talking; the mental equivalent of a sign over your friend's head announcing how many hours remain before it's time to pack up yet again and fly back into your regularly scheduled lives.

When I awoke from my nap the clock said 10:12; the room, dark. Almost automatically, my awareness drifted down to my legs and found him: there, snuggled close. Not interested in being cuddled or petted, but in nearness, in gathering warmth. I swirled fingertips down his back, and his muscles quivered and rippled in response, his spots and orange splotches shivering with the touch and then settling back down to their normal spaces.

Gareth: Heh. You will use the holiday skin and like it.

Amy: Can I quote you on that when I post the entry about all this?

For those of you who used your best StrongBad "Holy crap!" voice when you showed up here, relax. 'cat.net hasn't been taken over by aliens yet. There will be no alien takeover until December; until then we're free to make merry and taunt the cats.