I want to paint gold stars on my bedroom walls.
I painted them a dark navy when I moved into my new apartment in June. They had been gray. Or was it cream? I wanted them navy. I thought I wanted them to be white, like every apartment vision board algorithmically calculated for a young woman in her 20s told me I did, but then I saw a photo on Pinterest of deep navy walls and bedding with rich golds and pinks and I said: “that’s the one.” I went out to Home Depot and picked up the paint.
They’re beautiful, really. It’s dark in here, even during a sunny afternoon. My sole window opens into the busy alley of a Chinese restaurant, where workers spend a lot of their time banging garbage into a dumpster and chatting on the phone, or maybe to each other, I can’t see. I keep my blinds closed and a curtain over them. They’re the kind that is supposed to let light in, but it’s not much. I keep my standing lamp on whenever I’m here, casting books on my tall, white bookshelf in a yellow glow, reflecting into a small corner of my room. In a way, it’s like the sun, orbited by a bookstore.
So now I’ll paint stars.
I don’t anticipate them to brighten up the place. I fully anticipate them to remove any small amount of sophistication a bedroom decorated with postcards and unframed cheap prints can posess, but I want to paint something and I think stars on my wall are a logical step, especially because I still have navy paint left to cover them up with when I move out so the next tenant doesn’t have to be burdened by my abysmal fine motor skills.