When I paint. Sheesh. You’re sick.

A friend of mine has been “in the process” of painting her family room for something like six months. I couldn’t take it any more; when I saw her this weekend, I told her to pick a day because it was time to finish painting. She picked today, and I went straight over there after dropping the kids. We sponge painted the entire room. I did all of the work near the ceiling, because she has a bad shoulder and shouldn’t be reaching. And really, I find that Zen mood that overtakes me when I paint settles in better when I’m perched on a ladder or a chair. It must be the additional concentration.

Despite my single-minded attention on the task at hand, I discovered myself singing along with the radio. The station we were listening to was an “oldies” station, and many of those “oldies” are from when I was in high school. That made me feel pretty oldie. Wah. But that is not my point. My point is that amongst the Beatles and the Billy Joel and the James Taylor and all the other stuff they played for three hours while we painted, I knew all the lyrics to all of the songs without even thinking about it.

No wonder I can’t seem to remember anything or learn anything new. My brain is already full of useless information like the fact that the Pinball Wizard plays by sense of smell (okay, if you must know, for one moment I also wondered how supple his wrist really is) and that sharing a drink they call loneliness is better than drinking alone. I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are… dude, that’s profound. It’s also an excellent beat for sponging to, which is crucial for a task like this. When “doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore” started twanging out of the radio, we had to stop and have some donuts.

I’ll grant you that serenading my friend at the end of the morning with a hearty belting-out of “We are the champions, my FRIEEEEEEEND” is kinda fun, but if I had my druthers, I’d really rather remember to actually take my trash out on, say, the day that the truck picks it up.

But I guess that would be asking too much. No matter. When I’m up there painting the ceiling, anything is possible. I crooned it all directly into my paintbrush–with feeling–so it must be true. I’ll keep on fighting to the end. No time for losers, cuz I am the champion of the wooooooooorld!