On Friday I decided to offset the seasonal melancholy that comes with being indoors all winter by painting my room. I wanted to brighten it up and cover up the unsightly off-white color, which I call “smoggy daze.” I rode my bike to the nearest Home Depot, nestled deep below street level at the corner of 59th Street and 3rd Avenue. I walked in with an understanding of house painting loosely based on watching my father paint rooms as a kid. What I did not walk in with was a shopping list, or another person to help me remember everything I should buy for the project.

The salesman mixed up a gallon of primer and a gallon of “Billowing Clouds”, a gentle blue to match the sky that I can never see directly from my bedroom window. While he did that, I picked up a ready-made beginners painting kit including: a paint tray and a brush and roller. I then threw into the cart an extending pole for the roller, a putty knife and a jar of “goes on pink and dries white for those who have no clue what they are doing” spackle.

I pushed my things through the self-checkout, then up the two flights back to street level, where I came up to the security guy checking receipts at the exit.

“You need a cab?” he said, looking at the girth of my purchases.

“Nope, I am going to take it home on my bike.” I said, as he looked at me with a little bit of amusement then slightly shook his head as if to say, “Glad it’s not me.”

What I had not considered was the fact that only one gallon of paint would fit in the basket on the front of my bike, leaving the second to be precariously perched on top of it. I loaded up my messenger bag with the smaller items, clipping the larger paint tray to the outside straps of the bag. The extender pole rode part of the way sticking precariously out of the basket, then switched into being carried like a Massai spear, ready to swipe at unsuspecting motorists and pedestrians that wandered into my path.

I admit, someone to split cab fare with back to the apartment would have been more helpful. Even a second bike basket at this point would have been the better option, as compared to putting myself in mortal danger riding alone with all of the painting materials.

I did make it home eventually, with one of the cans suffering a flattened side, after it rolled from its basket perch onto the street at 73rd and Third. After getting everything accounted for and tearing off the packaging for the paint kit, I moved the furniture, cleared the floor and realized that I had forgotten a drop cloth and edging tape. Had I been living with someone, at this point I would have sent him to the store to get what we forgot on the first trip. Being alone, I decided that I would be incredibly careful and not drip instead of halting the momentum of the project.

I spackled the walls, smoothing it down with the putty knife, realizing, only after the fact, that I had nothing to sand it down with once it dried. At this point, I would have called my live-in boyfriend on his cell phone while he was at the store and asked him to pick up sandpaper too. Being alone, the thought crossed my mind of using a nail file, of which I have several lying around the apartment.

Nonetheless, I forged ahead, and began applying the primer with the roller, grabbing a ladder from the basement of my building to detail the upper edges of the wall. Here, it would have been most helpful to hold the ladder for my live-in boyfriend as he reached into the corners and filled in the bare spots. Living by myself, however, I performed a single-handed balancing act on the rickety ladder, the reason for which there are now painty finger prints and smudges on the ceiling.