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it takes about 2 hours for me to prime 3 door frames. today i had 8 more to finish - more if you count alternating sides of the doorway as doubles. i also primed a detached board from a shelf, admiring my brushstrokes afterwards. it may look terrible, but the paint eventually spreads and is relatively smooth to the touch when it dries. as much of a mess painting with oil can be, i can't help but to admire it's durability. when you paint something with oil, it feels solid, like it's shellacked in color.

after 3 door frames i took a break: cleaned the brush, showered, and then went to return an unused cablemodem. earlier this morning i was buying a used motorola surfboard cablemodem from a guy in central square for $10. last night he told me already had some buyers lined up but then wrote back and said i could have it. when i got in touch with him this morning it sounded like he was still sleeping. when i got to his apartment and called him (both on his cell and home phones) he didn't answer until i called a second time. with that i brought it over to my parents' place and called up comcast to have them activate this new used modem so i could return the comcast modem (and my parents would have to pay $3/month to lease it). anyway, the closest office was in watertown center. a man ahead of me in line wearing a "[jacoby] ellsbury" baseball jersey was complaining about how the cable company lied to him about certain service charges. "i love dexter," he confessed to the woman behind the counter, after their initial heated exchange. "my girlfriend got me into it. i saw the bionic woman last night. didn't really like it."

back at the house i ate the last remaining slice of leftover pizza and watched a bit of television while drinking some coke. at 2pm i started the paint machine again with 5 more frames to go plus a closet and 2 windows. you should always cover the floor when you paint because inevitability you'll drip. it's not so bad with latex because you can wash it off with water (when it's still wet) but oil paint is a different animal and you basically have to take care of it right away because it's hard to get rid of when it dries. towards the end there was so much paint drips everywhere that it created a terrible mess. i had paint on my hands, under my feet, on my pants, and even in my hair. i was afraid to touch anything afterwards for fear of tracking paint onto it.

my father came home in the late afternoon and helped me prime the rest of what was remaining. he did the windows while i finished up with the door frames. afterwards we combined forces to paint the bedroom closet. we listened to ken burns' "the war" on television as if it was radio program. we set up fans throughout the house to get rid of the strong oil paint smell and to assist with the drying.

paint thinner will eat through a plastic cup over time; i cut off the top of a soda can with a saw and used it as a brush cleaning cup. i worked in the backyard on the lawn so i wouldn't track paint in the house (a few weeks ago i was working on the backyard stairs and splattered paint everywhere, lesson learned).

while cleaning the brushes, i looked overhead and saw the strangest clouds. i knew a storm front was moving into town, so that had something to do with it.

even more mysterious, there was a rainbow directly overhead. in fact, there was actually a double rainbow, with the second one being more faint.

i went back to cambridge, taking with me a prepared lunch my mother had made for me but i didn't eat. my odometer finally reached 7000+ miles. not sure if there's enough riding days left in the season for me to add another 1000 miles to my motorcycle. later in the evening i had my lunch for dinner then ate some tomatoes for dessert (total lycopene overdose).