Victory is mine! The room is painted. I just finished touching up the ceiling on the bits I had gotten blue paint on, and now I have to sit and wait for it to dry before I can move my furniture back in. The bits of the ceiling I touched up are looking distressingly blue, but I'm hoping that's because the wet paint is reflecting the color of the walls. I washed out the paintbrush well, so I can't think what else it would be.

The fourth of July was nice, actually. I went to Meadow Farm Museum and spent the afternoon spinning and talking to all the people coming through the farmhouse. (Wearing hoopskirts, of course, which actually don't get in the way that much.) I love spinning. I learned how last spring, but this is the first time I've been able to get the spinning wheel to turn the right way consistantly. One of these days I'll think of something to do with the yarn.

Then I spent the evening alone, sketching and listening to Irish music. Which is just about an ideal evening, really, so I can't complain. When it got dark I started hearing firecracker noises, so I walked down the street and watched the neighborhood kids with their sparklers. It was pretty. The fourth of July is a pretty holiday.

I think The Scarlet Letter would make a fantastic opera. Somebody's probably written one already, but if not, they should. The storyline is ideal because it's full of forbidden love and rebellion against society. And in the end, you even get a great scene with the hero dying in the heroine's arms in front of the whole town. Plus there are plenty of opportunities for long tragic arias on Hester's and Dimmesdale's parts. The rest of the villagers could go around being the chorus and commenting on the plot, and Chillingworth would be great as the villain. He'd have to be a baritone. Dimmesdale and Hester would be a tenor and a soprano, respectively, because that's how things work. The only real problem would be that it's unconventional for the tenor to die in the soprano's arms instead of the other way around.

July 2
July 13