We’ve been having an exciting spring so far, which reminds me of that Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. It’s an English translation of a genuine Chinese curse, but I heard it when I was still quite young, perhaps in my 20s. Wikipedia reminds us of the obvious that the “expression is ironic: ‘interesting’ times are usually times of trouble.” I would add complication and challenge. Today’s interesting times mostly seem concerned with graft and bullying and self-aggrandizement. Alas, I am not the one profiting, gaining power, or advancing my image.

We’ve found the typical trash on the beach lately—plastic bottles and bottle caps, plastic rope, and a lot of polystyrene foam Gary carried home and that filled our trash cans—but no Bic lighters. A blue plaid cotton shirt has been hung on driftwood for a week now. The photos above are from two days. We’ve also found sea glass.

The dental appointments were uncomfortable, the way a nurse about to insert an IV will say, “You’ll feel a poke,” but our teeth are clean, I did not have a heart attack, the first bills for the ambulance and ER have arrived, I am doing planks, and I have purchased the very dark mahogany-red paint that I mean to use on the front doors of our condominium building.

I plan to paint tomorrow morning at about 5am, and a second coat about noon. It is a gorilla action. That is, I don’t have permission, and Gary is afraid I will be sued. I contend that most people won’t notice the difference, some will wish I’d painted the doors green again, which people would have noticed, and a few might appreciate that the darker color as well as the hue are meant to emulate the original mahogany.

The doors are in bad shape, one hundred years old, most recently painted an unfortunate mid-brown, before that a clear green that most of us loved, and originally, before that, were varnished mahogany. There is a great deal of damage and rot especially at the bottoms of the beautiful doors, but our condominium will take years to get around to doing the right thing and having them rebuilt. [I could connect them to a cabinet-maker capable of building new doors, but there you are. While not a “professional,” I have been trained to paint by two professionals—I’m very good at it.] I detest the current color because it’s too light and doesn’t provide enough contrast to the surrounding (also unfortunately newly painted) beige. I’ve chosen the dark paint as the closest I can get to the original-original wood color, and because the doors need to be darker. I have my tools laid out ready for tomorrow.

In the mean time, I have completed nearly every submission on my list and am only waiting for a couple of presses to open. I have designed a cover for self-publishing next year if nothing comes of these submissions. For the uninitiated, a few agents respond in a month or two, most by three months. Small presses require up to a year to respond.

I design covers for my novel as a reward to myself for a hard day, which means I have hundreds of designs, none of which include a white woman in the nude and without hands or feet or discernible facial features. I’d hoped to use a Georgia O’Keeffe painting because many are now in the public domain. The local press only looked at her flowers [I am partial to “Black Iris”] but there is greenery and an empty clam shell. They thought her work conveyed a romantic image that didn’t fly with my story.

The one image I think I’ve settled on is a verdant landscape painted by a woman from over a hundred years ago. Gary likes it best.

Finally, it’s possible the “interesting times” is a miss-translation of another Chinese quote, “”Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos.” Better to be powerless in a peaceful world than a human being of any sort just now.