Blog Mama

Friday, May 31, 2002

In my imagination, I am standing on my new front porch. It is painted pretty blue and white. I say “pretty” because it is a fairly new paint job and most would say it was nice. Personally, I can think of a lot better colors to paint a house than blue and white, but this is what we got. And it doesn’t need repainting and I couldn’t afford it if it did right now. Also, I’m not so much about painting the exterior myself. Even just the porch. But, in my brain I sit on my alleged porch and fantasize about the colors I would paint. Sometimes I paint the house a warm medium gray with white and hot yellow trim. Sometimes I leave it white and do the trim in orange and purple (the current favorite). Sometimes I leave it the same but obsess about it for the next thirty years.

There are things I never imagine for my new house. I never imagine doing the Animal House skull and crossbones thing to it. I never imagine stenciling any part of it, inside or out. I never imagine putting in a bright red roof like those fuckers down the street. I never imagine valances. I never imagine putting up wallpaper anywhere but the kitchen (where I don’t actually intend to put up wallpaper, but sometimes I imagine it). And I almost never imagine my house being besieged by a group of zombie French impressionist painters.

Now, you are asking yourself, as I would if I were you, does she mean French impressionist painters who are also zombies, or does she mean French impressionist painters OF zombies. Why, the latter of course, silly. Why didn’t I say French impressionist zombie painters? Because it wouldn’t have mattered. The question would still be begged. What did I actually mean?

So, today, I imagine my pretty new (alleged) house being besieged by guys with skinny overwaxed moustaches (yes, you too Berthe Morisot, as electrolysis was sadly before your time) with paintbrushes who want to decorate with splotchy spotty ephemeral zombie art that would have been all the rage when my house was originally built (1880). So, you ask, as I would too, what will she do? What will she doooooo? How will she defend herself and her manse against the painters of the zombies?

First, I know I can easily take out Claude “Hellcat” Monet just by shining a heavy duty flashlight in his eyes - the jackass can’t do anything without precisely right lighting conditions. So, modification #1: install floodlights (the sexy kind).

But, of course, here comes P. A. Renoir, or Pete, as I have come to call him - Pedro when I’m drunk. Pete likes pretty things. Once I point out to Pete that zombies are many things, but none of them are pretty, he pretty much gouges out his own eyes and runs away crying like a little girl. From his no-eyes. No modifications needed.

Pissarro and Morisot found each other on the way over and only wanted to make the zombie with two backs if you know what I mean. All I had to do was to kill them softly with my song. Pussies. They don’t deserve to be zombie painters.

And Sisley, poor bastard, his obsession with zombies became an obsession with dead smelly things the likes of which this town has never seen. I tried for awhile just to take away his toys and lock him in my attic, but when he started calling me Baby Jen, or, alternatively, “Thunder Thighs” it just pissed me off. Finally, I found that the only way to get rid of him was to mirror every surface in the house, inside and out. You see, being an “impressionist,” all that reflection was too much for him. He couldn’t put out without everything coming back in on him. Let’s just say, he couldn’t handle the introspection. It wasn’t just that the mirrors didn’t allow him to ignore contrast, as was his way, but he was forced to acknowledge that his zombies, they just weren’t truly the message of his soul. He had fallen in with the others at the café and a bit too much ‘vin’ later, he was just zombie-ing along like he’d been doing it his whole life. I tried to tell him it wasn’t a popularity contest, but he realized his life’s work was a sham. And this realization was echoed from every surface, shiny and bright. Realizing that the only way to give his life meaning was to become one with his work, he commits hari kari, with the intent to become a zombie himself. It fails. His work wasn’t very good to begin with and art imitates life, so. All he made was a mess. I invited Eddie Manet in to splotch the blood and guts around a bit, do what he could with it. But impressionism she is a bitch goddess and on the fourth day of Eddie’s ‘mood’ (which he claimed would inspire him but which I didn’t see doing anything but decimating his poor-to-begin-with hygiene) I couldn’t take it anymore, took a mop to the project, and that is how I defended my little piece of the planet against the zombies and the French all in one week.
posted by Jenifer 10:39 AM

Friday, May 10, 2002

I want to make it very clear that I do not, repeat, do not, believe in private property. We don't own the earth, we are the stewards of the earth, we are of the earth, the earth is not of us, blah blah blah namaste, etc. So, in recognition of my given-from-the-world-but-not-the-earth right to steward a lil' ol' patch of the Mater Terra, I am buying a house. This is so stressful and so emotional and I already really love this house even though it's not actually mine, yet. Even though everyone told me not to romanticize or get attached to a house until someone presses the keys into my sweaty anxious palms, I find it hard to believe that anyone with a brain would spend six figures of actual money on something that they were not attached to. Okay, I didn't set this page up right, so I have to post this and then continue. Hold on.
posted by Jenifer 3:26 PM