Who does THIS?

This is the color of insanity.

The guy who owns this house, which sits in my backyard, is insane. There is no other explanation. He doesn't even live there. He has spent the last year or so teaching in India with his brand new wife (#3). And the poor renters are beside themselves. They have had to deal with so much craziness this past year, I don't know why they are still there or how they have escaped becoming lunatics themselves. But that is all a much longer story.

Without any communication whatsoever, the owner, N.J., decided the house needed paint. It did. Badly. He hadn't touched it for the entire 12 years or so since he bought the place (and which sat empty for years before that). It was such an eyesore in powder blue peeking out from all that mold and dirt. The renters had no advance warning when the team showed up to start power washing and papering over the windows. That was a few weeks ago. It was really slow going, with just one guy showing up every few days to work like a snail on the window trim. In the meantime, they lived in a cave with no light -- the brown papered up windows a cruel joke.

So I went on a long weekend getaway. And came home to Ronald McDonald's hair. A traffic cone orange edifice that you can probably see from space. The poor neighbors on the other side are just finishing up painting their new home a lovely shade of hunter green, which now looks neon orange instead. As does the interior of their entire home due to the heat lamp-like reflection which glows off this ridiculous circus tent. I'm a little farther away, and the reflection doesn't really color my back rooms, but the back yard will never be the same. You won't even notice that there are flower beds or grass -- because there is no way to not be riveted by the gigantic 4-alarm blaze that rises over everything. This is beyond inconsiderate. Beyond rude. Beyond artistic statement or just being "fun." It's insane. Nobody does this.

The painters apologized. They double and triple checked with him. He meticulously chose this color, and even opted for paying extra for the third coat it took to get the proper coverage. It's obviously a statement. And what bothers me the most? Is that he did it while not even living there - so it's not his artistic expression of the place he resides. It's an "in your face" way to blatantly oppose the norm while not dealing with the consequences, like a coward. It's one thing to stand for something loud and stand behind your words or actions. It's something else to spray paint it on somebody else's wall in the dark of night and run for cover.

All the neighbors have commiserated. There is nothing we can do. He doesn't return calls or emails anyway. Some day maybe he'll want to re-rent it? Or sell it? And have to change the color because nobody in their right mind would move in. I wasn't planning on moving in the near future (not that I haven't thought about it a lot in the last 24 hours), but now I couldn't possibly sell my house with that kind of thing in the backyard. It's so awful. I can't walk past a window here without glancing out and shuddering, shaking my head and rolling my eyes, all at once. If anyone saw me, they'd think I had some kind of nervous disorder. I'm not against color, really. But when I approached the front steps, and saw close up that it's the actual paint used to paint curbs and construction projects, true day-glo orange, I almost cried. It's 2 stories high!!!! And my little, low, one floor bungalow is dwarfed in its radiating nuclear shadow.

I'm going to have to come to terms with it. Accept it. I honestly like the fact that he chose a bright, non-conformist color and had the courage to do something not beige and boring. I usually like to support people who push the norm a little and poke at boundaries, because I often feel we are slowly beginning to lose some of our freedoms to express ourselves. So I'm faced with the internal struggle, literally, of "not in my back yard." Brick red would have been cool. Even burgundy. But this feels more hostile. I have been told it will fade, more quickly than a lot of other colors. And the siding will have to be replaced within 5-10 years anyway. Which pretty much means that N.J. won't think about it for another 20. Or decides to sell -- even longer.

The painters said you wouldn't believe how many people stopped, pulled over, asked questions. I said I would believe it. It just begs for some partying kids or angry thug to spray junk all over the side. Or maybe we should make a giant jack o'lantern face on it? And use it for a Halloween decoration all month?

And maybe I should just quit bitching about something so petty anyway. Seems like there is another major shooting at some school almost every day, and there are much more important things to get my undies in a wad over. But damn, the shock of this ORANGE is going to take a bit longer to fade, I think.

I'm imagining a big spotlight now, with a black construction paper pumpkin face taped over it, directed right at that great big monstrous thingie over the fence.