My landlord recently approved my proposal to paint the apartment by slipping the now-crumpled sheet of paper onto which I’d written the proposal back under my door with a nearly-illegible “APPROVED” scrawled on the corner. There’s another word under the mark of approval, and a date, but I’m not sure what the other word is. I guess this means I can proceed.

I have hanging on the wall several paint chips that Chelsea and I picked up at some frou-frou paint store in Union Square where they pretty much serve you caviar when you walk in the door and wipe your ass on the way out. Except that day there was present a herd of nine year-olds in the paint chip room, all of which had the manners, collectively, of a baby chimpanzee with ADD. We weren’t sure to whom the children belonged — no one should have that many unruly, buck-toothed, saliva factories — we just grabbed every paint chip in sight, carefully avoiding all Dusty Rose-related chips, and ran the hell out of there.

The paint plan is threefold: first, the kitchen, which will thrive on some kind of minty-green-and-red 1940s-inspired delusion; then, slowly, I’ll paint the rest of the walls white — a color they currently resemble, but which is in fact closer to a corpse-like grey with mysterious tan streaks; and last, I’ll cover the ridiculously hideous pattern that’s painted over my collapsing and splintering plywood floor with a nice, soul-crushing BLACK.

Have I mentioned before that I live in a tenement?

Well, not exactly. But just like some mascara will make me feel like a million bucks after a night of binge drinking, once I slap a coat of fresh paint on this apartment, it’s going to look nice.