just going through the motions

There was something both complete hilarious and utterly grotesque about listening to a few backlogged episodes of James Howard Kunstler podcasts while painting my half bath yellow. (psst! If you're not listening to JHK's Kunstlercast, I guess I don't know why, maybe because you didn't know about it? Well, hey! Now you do!). It's not that I am a big fan of climate change and the end of cheap oil and drastic transitions. It's that I think they're all inevitable -sooner than we think even!- and I'd rather know what I'm up against than be caught with my head in a vat of air conditioned petroleum when the stuff hits the fan, you know.

So while my head was thinking about this stuff, my hands were so frivolously changing the color of a bathroom that is mostly used by guests (when I remember to tell guests it's there, so hidden it is around the corner where no one notices, and when we have guests at all, not so often, really). And it seemed like a foolish sort of task.

Life in the Bleak House here (really, we could take a number because our plight is not unique, but it's hard to always keep that perspective) has been full up with foolishness. I'd like to stand tall and declare how everything we do is purposeful, useful, good. But our home improvement projects (and there have been many!) are mostly for our own pleasure. I'm indescribably pleased about the new kitchen floor. I'm delighted every time I walk into my cheerfully blue laundry room. I cross my fingers that if, as we suspect, we might have to put this home we love on the chopping block real estate market sooner than later, the improvements will make all the difference.

But we're still totally protected by the comfort of cheap(ish) oil. We still have the luxury of doing fluffy things, frivolous things, things that will matter less when life is leaner and our collective amusement ranks lower.

However, tonight's Sunday and I made pizza, like I do, and now, because I swear I haven't forgotten, I will share a song, and that's amusing.

I find myself humming this song all the time. It's used as the opening song for the kunstlercast and it stuck in my head so much that I had to look it up and download it for my very own. And then! When looking for a decent quality version to embed here, I found this little gem, the only non-live copy on youtube and it made me smile. (I am a responsible adult who does her own dishes! Ha! Yes!)