<$100: My Sofa

Upon moving into my little white apartment, with its adorable cream colored vaulted ceilings and white tile floors, I wanted nothing more than white furniture to make this place feel like a fucking cloud. More than that, though, I wanted to spend little to no money furnishing and decorating, and as it turns out white furniture is pretty expensive.

I had taken it upon myself to have a budget of $100 to spend on my whole apartment, and at 420 sq. feet, it's really not that hard. And when you take into account that I had half a house full of furniture stockpiled in some bodunk storage shack in Mesa, $100 seems pretty alright. My first order of business was to find a sofa. A pretty sofa. And it has to be white. For way less than $100, since I still have a bunch of other this-and-thats left to buy. I'm guessing you already know, but in case you don't, white sofas are either super expensive, or super dirty. I toyed around with all sorts of ideas, the most prominent one being "hey I'll make my own goddamn sofa!" I'd read enough design blogs to know how to make a sofa, and to be honest I'm pretty damn crafty when I need to be.

So I set out to make a sofa.

Of course, as that turns out, building a sofa costs more than buying a sofa, even if it is a white sofa. I guess it's the price to pay for not being an IKEA yuppie home. Between the wood and the paint and the foam, fabric, nails and glue, not to mention time, making a sofa turned too overwhelming all too fast.

So here I am with no money and no sofa, and now no ideas.

So I went on craigslist. I figured hey, if I can't make my own sofa, I'll redo someone else's! I'd get a janky free couch from the internet, and then pick up some white fabric and reupholster that bad boy so it's new and fresh and most importantly, WHITE. Being the internet, I find a plethora of free couches here and there, with torn cushions or scratched up armrests, pet dander and cigarette burns. The options were limitless! I needed only to pick one up and make it mine. Right? Wrong. What comes with picking up a free sofa, of course, comes with taking it home, and my little Taurus can't fit anything bigger than 39 inches wide. And you know, couches are much bigger than 39 inches.

But then, like a beacon of hope from the heavens, craigslist sends a giant papasan chair my way. You know, those wicker-bamboo-rattan bowl chairs you see at Pier 1, always sit in, and dream of owning even though they are $200 for basically a giant bowl. This one was not terribly far from me, either. So minutes later I am out the door and over to see my new potential sofa, and of course, the thing is blue. Couldn't be a warm color to go with my beige house, noooo. It had to be the worst shade of cornflower blue that would make even the worst IKEA Kramfors couch vomit.

But for $25, I thought, I'll deal.

So the thing is now in three parts, cushion, bowl and base, and barely fitting into my Taurus' trunk, which I'm growing to resent more every minute. It's half sticking out and I drive the 10 miles back to my house, taking local streets and having people eye me as they drive around and pass me. But like I said, for $25 I won't complain. So this hideous blue thing is now in my living room, the perfect size and everything, but hey, I wanted white.

So I threw a white blanket over it and called it a day. And for $25, it's pretty adorable, right?

And it really is just like a cloud.

Do expect more stories of decorating woes and wins, because this is the best use of my time I've ever encountered. It's even better than reading design blogs.

A successful day for Talisa! (also Neopets, part III)

Today was a good day! I (for the first time ever) kicked a virus out of my computer! Sadly, it's not the computer that hates me. But still, a big accomplishment! All of the links in a google search used to take me to the same website, overclick.com, but no more! Now I can google furniture to my heart's content. I also facebooked all of my new neighbors. CREEPER WIN! I hope they read this and give me looks when I move in.

But the best part of the day is this:
Upon visiting neopets.com to enter three new fake birthdays, I find that I am already logged into my account. How did it happen? I don't know, but you can be damn sure that I am changing my birthday to a more memorable one, and grabbing a chunk of that fucking free omlette.

EDIT: After a quick look around my childhood fictional internet world greed, I find that I have over eleven thousand neopoints, and over 300 items in my safety deposit box. If only my real life were this spectacular.

Talking antiques with Mom

It's no secret how much I love antique furniture. The thought of a camelback edwardian sofa can send me into a wild frenzy, no lie. But my mom hates them, she's always afraid there'll be ghosts of past owners living in the furniture, and they'll bother you every day at inconvenient times.

On antique tables:
"In the middle of the night, you see the ghost sitting at the table, 'This is supposed to be a set, where is my chaaaaair?' every night. 'Why did you buy the table and not the chaaaaair?'"

On antique beds:
"It'll shake every night. boom boom boom boom boom. Every night while you're trying to sleep."

On mirrors:
"Don't even talk about mirrors! When you're brushing your hair, 'Come with me to the other siiiiide'. Your face turns into the ghost (she stretches her arm out) 'Come with meeeeee, to the other siiiiiide'."

Neopets, Part II

I find it hilarious that my 8 year old neopet is miserable and dying, yet has a health score of 10/10. I still can't remember my fake birthday, damn website.

Neopets Revisited

In a random burst of childhood nostalgia, undoubtedly brought out by cleaning and organizing boxes in the garage, I decided to visit my old Neopet "creme_puf". That's pronounced "kreem poof", like it's Russian or something. Anywho, upon visiting the newly revamped neopets site, I found that security had been hiked up to a painfully impossible high. Seriously, no one was getting through that login process. Needless to say, I was thwarted by the combination password and birthday verification (I lied back in the day to get on neopets when I wasn't 13 yet), and the little icon of creme_puf snarled at me. No lie, they have a little picture of the neopet all angry, like it's supposed to deter hackers from getting to your neopoints. Oh shit man that 4-eared cat is growling at me, I better rethink my evil ways. For those who don't know, my neopet is a yellow cat with two regular ears, and two additional ears sprouting on antennae on the top of her head. She's an "Aisha", and she was a magnificent beast.

Since I was shunted from logging in to what was rightfully mine, memories of time spent on neopets (I didn't have many friends as a child) came flooding back to me. The most important being when my mom's frugal genes kicked in and I put every neothing I owned into my safety deposit box like a time capsule, so that years later when I was 20 and bored I could come back and gaze upon my neogreed with pride. So much time was spent hoarding and hoarding, snatching things from the Giving Tree, and spinning the fairy wheel and winning prizes, grabbing the free omlette every day, going on quests for evil witches and wise old trees. And now I am back to reap the rewards.

Wrong. Now that I've entered my birthday wrong three times, they won't let me try again till tomorrow.

10 days till move-in!

After what seems like the longest summer ever, that time of year is rolling around when leaves turn yellow and the crisp smell of school supplies lingers in the air, and an air of endless possibility is waiting on the horizon...

Just kidding, it's almost time to move back to Tempe.

Tempe, where the girls are monotonous, blonde and orange, the freshmen are perpetually drunk and everyone is sweaty and unattractive. Tempe, with its painfully unreliable public transportation and train stations so unsympathetic to the blistering sun. Where every year some poor California native gets heat exhaustion every year upon moving in. Yes sir, it's time for the shorts and sandals tan to come back, for the wide brimmed sun hat to make its annual debut, and for my favorite misting fan to be dug out and filled with icy, refreshing water.

I'm quite excited about moving in, but at the same time I am terrified that my new place will end up looking like my old place, which lacked personality and charm to the fullest. I am scared that my apartment, my 420 square feet of space bubble won't feel like a cosy extension of ME, and that I'll go to bed every night wishing I lived somewhere else. Or, I'm afraid that my poor decorating skills won't be enough to pass off some poorly done DIY furnishings as personality, and that every morning I'll wake up wishing I were somebody else.

But most of all, I'm afraid that I'll be too afraid to do anything with my little space, and that it'll end up white and bland, with bland but safe furnishings, and that I'll walk around all the time wishing I were someone at all.

Yep, it's that time of year again.

Bright Young Things

Today, as part of my James McAvoy Movie McArathon (I know right!) I watched Bright Young things. I didn't completely understand everything the fancy Brits were saying, but the fashion and set pieces were enough to buy my approval! Not like it means anything, though. Anyway. As I was watching it, three things were happening:
1. My secret burning desire to be an English aristocrat in the 30's came rushing back
2. I realized Stephen Campbell Moore in this movie was an older British Zac Efron

YEAH?
3. The entire time I was watching the movie "Get'cha Head in the Game" was playing in my head.


This video has lyrics! I did not search for lyrics. Please.


As a side note, and for future reference, the James McAvoy McArathon (Day 1) has consisted of:

1. Atonement
2. Penelope
3. Bright Young Things
4. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Believable Movies

Upon wikipedia-ing Gigantic, starring Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel, I found that this movie got 1/2 stars out of 5 on some obscure movie rating site, which is quite sad seeing as I really liked it. It's basically about this guy who is obsessed with adopting a Chinese baby, and right around the time he is approved to adopt it, he meets and falls in love with this rich, but kind of fucked up on the inside, girl, who is ironically nicknamed Happy. And while that is going on there is a homeless man (played by the dude who played Alan in The Hangover) that constantly beats up Paul Dano for no apparant reason.

Anyway, pretty much every review gives this movie terrible ratings and very harshly worded criticisms, saying the characters weren't "believable" or "genuine", and the plot made no sense and came to no conclusion, which made me kind of annoyed. I tend to like "bad" movies, I guess. Ones that are more like glimpses into real people's lives than complete stories where everything has a meaning and nothing exists outside of it. To me it seems more "believable" that you don't know everything about a character's life than when Nicholas Cage is scraping the paint off a 50 year old elemetary school gymnasium door in Knowing (which, by the way, was a silly but creepy ass movie that I think you should see). It was refreshing to see a movie about painfully regular people that didn't make your life feel like shit compared to that of the leading man and lady, who just so happen to lead extraordinary lives with extraordinary events. I don't know about you, but I wake up every day and go to sleep every night and nothing spectacular ever happens to me. If they made a movie about my life, people would say it sucked. I exist, and I will continue existing long after the conclusion of my story.

It irks me that Paul Dano and Zooey Dechanel's characters were criticised for being un-genuine. Characters aren't always so animated, their intense passionate chemistry isn't always shown in their eyes and through their complex hand motions, or whatever it is that makes an actor so critically acclaimed and Oscar-worthy these days, I don't know. No, people are just dry, boring, creatures who talk however they talk and love in their own average, normal ways.

It's kind of funny that this movie was criticised for being unrealistic when it is probably the closest thing resembling real life, complete with random little details and lack of a happy ending. It makes me think about what people think their lives are supposed to be like.