I could be consulting for US Web, but instead I'm eating chocolate and roaming the aisles of the hardware store. It is important, on a chocolate day, to paint in uppity colors. I get low-gloss, and I stand next to the man mixing the paint. I watch the blue and red and yellow paint spurt into the can because when the man shuts the can and inserts it in the shaker, my purple comes out like magic. I have tried this at home. With dinner ingredients. With facemask ingredients. Maybe I need a mechanical shaker. I tell the man I'll take a peach too, so I can watch the paint drops again.

I have to stop at the thrift shop because I promised Tano I'd stop painting things that the landlord owns.

The thrift shop lady gives me good deals because I take the furniture that looks raw—deals I would not need if I would go to work.

On the way to the thrift shop I stop at the deli and buy three brownies for the man who sleeps on the street down the block from the deli because I think this is a way to not be a stereotype. Well, and because it's nice.

The thrift shop lady has put an end table in the back for me. She also put aside a dress. "This is good for you," she says. "Very woman. Nice for the boys."

It's a nice dress for someone who eats as many brownies as I'm not going to eat anymore. Maybe I will paint the dress peach. I put the dress and the table in my car.

I paint the table purple and I line it up next to the orange table, which is next to the pink table. I move the blue table to the opposite wall of the apartment because orange and pink are from the same family, and purple and blue are from the same family. I paint the green lamp peach, so the pink and orange family is big and happy and the blue and purple family is small and alienated. Not all families are happy families, and I want my apartment to be realistic.

The paint fumes make me hyper and I have some coffee in a big mug, which I hold while I sit on my soft, green sofa to watch the wet become low-gloss.