Math and measuring are a hateful and horrible business. I wonder at people who find comfort and security in numbers and order, while I am perpetually vexed. There are fifteen squares in the powder room and I did not execute the meander correctly once. Each time I had to reconnoiter the bit in the middle. Each time.
Beyond that, there are tricky parts both behind and beside the toilet and under the sink. In a perfect world, one would execute such a project free of such obstacles. It is not a perfect world. As I found myself lying on the floor wedged between the toilet and the wall maneuvering a yard stick with one hand and a pencil with another, I was reminded of an interlude in the lower berth of a bunk bed in Stillwater, Oklahoma my freshman year of college. This latest feat, at least, yielded satisfying results and left no lingering notion that looks foretell neither intelligence nor prowess.
Beyond the physical discomfort was the anxiety of making a mistake. Pencil, of course, can be erased, but inky, black paint on a flat, white wall is the sort of slip that is difficult to undo. This is where one needs to exercise forethought and caution. Regardless my focus and enthusiasm, slip I did. Today I face sealer and more dreaded calculations as I finally hang the silhouettes. At the moment, from a language perspective, it’s a bit of a PG-13 environment.
