32,650

I am an artist.

I was an art major in college. A degree which has proven to be worth less than the paper on which it is printed.

I paint. And paint often. Four out of seven days I can be found with a paint brush in my hand.

Recently I met up with someone who asked me if I still painted. "Of course," I answered, "Walls... doors... floors.." And then I laughed. You know the laugh, the one that says I have a tenuous grasp on my sanity.

And when asked if I do anything else, I blurted out, "Change diapers." It was at that point that I think I frightened them off, for good.

Which is just as well, since with all the painting and diaper changing, there isn't much time left in my life for meaningless relationships with people who ask what I do.

What do I do? If I define myself by the things I feel the most passionate about, then I am a first a mother. If I define myself only by things that produce tangible results, then I am an artist. If I define myself by the things that I do most often, then I am a diaper changer.

I figured out today,while painting, that I have changed a lot of diapers in my tenure thus far as a mother. No matter what else I have been doing over the past 10 years, I have also been changing diapers. Not that it is a bad thing. Handling nuclear waste would be worse. Much much worse.

You would think that having a degree in art would mean I would be able to pick colors for my rooms with ease. But no, the degree has proven useless in this area also. So far the only thing that it has enabled me to do with ease is match my clothing, but I think I was already able to that quite well before I had the degree. It is easy with stores now like the Gap, and it's slutty little sister, Old Navy, which are essentially like Garanimals for grown-ups. Everything matches everything else, no need to think.

Every time I paint a room I go through several different colors before I finally settle on one. And often that one isn't even the "one" and I begin the process over again. Such is the curse of perfectionism.

Today I painted the walls of the bedroom that my 4 and 6yr old sons will share. There are very few products that I have brand loyalty toward, but paint happens to be one of them. After living in constant home renovation in two different houses over the past 9 years, I never buy any other paint than Benjamin Moore. I learned the hard way that not all paints are created equal.

But last night I was at the orange box store, where they do not sell Benjamin Moore paint, and I decided to buy a gallon of the RL paint. The names of the paint colors are completely arbitrary and give no clue as to the actual color. I picked out an off-whitish/tan that probably has an absurd name like British flour sack or billowing starched apron.

So imagine my surprise when I was painting my two younger sons' bedroom and I liked the color. It had such a nice calm feel to it. It felt so familiar. And as I finished rolling the paint on it hit me. The trim is a bright shiny white, the curtains and bedding I had picked out are predominantly denim colored, and the walls, it suddenly hit me, they are khaki.

And I came to the realization that my sons' bedroom is straight out of a GAP ad.

I could probably say something here about the creativity that has been sucked out of me and replaced by generic blandness. And I could relate this to the mega corporation phenomenon where our entire country is awash with blandness and sameness, and how we prize going to the identical store, in an identical mall, with the identical piped in musak no matter where we are. Really, what is the point in visiting somewhere if it is identical to what you left behind.

But I won't say anything. I'm too busy.

If you need me this week I will be painting. Or changing diapers.

As a matter fact I smell something now. Change that number to 32,651.