Artificial Intelligence, or, My Future Plans

I spent this afternoon working and actually enjoyed it.

Well, there wouldn't (and shouldn't) be anything so unusual about that if it wasn't working manually, in our garden, in a very hot weather, and in spite of my still feeling a little bit dizzy.

The main reason why it was "absolutely necessary" (in my mother's words) to go to our garden (which, most surprisingly, is NOT situated anywhere near our house), was the high-grown grass, which needed cutting and a part of our wooden cottage that needed painting.

Walt Whitman would probably take advantage of such a beautiful scenery, get inspired and spend an afternoon writing poems in the middle of it, but not my mother. She has as little understanding for a poetic soul as she has for the weed. Fortunatelly, she still has a little bit of understanding for my allergy to freshly mowed grass; she had seen the consequences many times after all: a terrible headache, runny nose, burning upper lip (well, still better than stiff upper lip, I suppose:)) and watering eyes. So when we approached the jungle, she bravely kept the task of cutting grass for herself and gave me a jar of paint and a set of brushes instead.

Talking of grass... the other man's grass is always greener, or, as the Shaltanacs would say, "The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauve-y shade of pinky russet," and I can remember that when I was a little girl I wanted to be a brunette (which I am not) and envied one of my Barbie dolls her chocolate skin.

Well, lucky day today, because my childish dream finally came true. After several minutes of painting the wall, my skin started to look as a quail's egg and my hair rapidly turned from fair to chesnut brown, not mentioning my perfect chocolate nail polish. But before I noticed that, I had realized something much more important. I really loved the activity itself!
I have realized before that I generally like such manual activities that do not demand too much thinking and can thus be accompanied by another activity, namely singing or listening to something. But painting would be fun even if it wasn't accompanied by anything else, thought I and started to contemplate, whether I really wanted to continue my painful studies at the Faculty of Arts... After I got a glimpse of my reflection in the cottage window, I came to a sad conclusion that I had perhaps gained much more (artificial) intelligence by my blonde-to-brunette transformation than I could ever have gained by writing school essays (which had been my original plan for this afternoon).
At, say, four o'clock p.m. I was firmly determined to become a painter, or, at least a decorater. But the momentary exploring of the difference between those two jobs made me remebmer my roommate, who is an actual painter, artist I mean. The picture of her shouting VERY angrily at the whistling workers who had been disturbing us during the last two exam periods at our dormitories, as well as her secret subversive expeditions with a single goal : to take their radio out of service once and forever, attacked my mind. The poor workers! How gratefully would I trade their brushes for my piles of books now... But it is too late to start crying over the spilled...paint ! Watch out!! Mum!!! Oh, shit, never mind.
Have I mentioned that there is no running water in our cottage anymore? No? Well, maybe I'll tell the story some other time, you know, I am fed up with writing right now, my hair and fingers glued up with dark brown paint, burning upper lip, watering eyes...

All right then, I desire being a brunette no more.
And let the real painters' walls be always greener, I don't care.
I took the road less travelled by and that has made all the difference.
But one day, If I will be given the miraculous chance of having children, I will paint everything within the reach of their tiny hands with them!

Heute Schluss, Ich gehe baden.