Do you know how many layers of paint come with a four hundred year-old château? 63. Probably. I didn’t get there, because I thought I’d slice off 3.14 layers like pie, be done, and go smoke a Gitanes. Unfortunately after twenty minutes my manicure was ruined, the heat gun was covered in sweat, and I couldn’t see out of my protective eyewear, because they were covered in salty, gray sludge. Non-waterproof mascara turned this whole thing into a TRAGEDY.

Rewind two weeks. The walls were puce and, oh my God, puce is a real color. Why would you ever paint your walls the same hue as flea droppings? Even if you lived during a time when fleas were everywhere? I made it my mission to turn this room into something that didn’t look like the inside of a small intestine. But once I started chipping away, uncovering more and more years of terrible color choices, I realized the exercise was futile, in the same way that mascara is futile. So I stopped. Even Madeline sometimes doesn’t follow through. (That jalopy was just fine, by the way).

Threw in a few plants, didn’t clean the chandelier, and now I’m tending my blisters and reading about Hollande’s sex life in that dusty fauteuil.

But I kinda like it.