Semi-free Time

Reviews are over! Well, they've been over for nearly a week now, and if you didn't know (which you should because I told everyone I know) I rocked the shit out of my reviewers and I wouldn't be surprised if they still lay awake at night thinking of my beautiful housing prototype. It is kind of bittersweet, cause now studio is (almost) always empty and I kind of have nothing to do. Never mind the finals hurtling towards me or final papers and assignments due. It is so weird now, I am doing what normal college students do all year. Go to class (sometimes), take tests, repeat. No all nighters in studio downing Ramen and belting out harmonies to You Belong With Me, fighting for computers in the hot computer lab when all the third floor computers are taken. No cutting yourself with X-acto blades and gluing yourself to your model because you are so tired. I guess it's weird mostly because I feel like I'm just starting school, now, when the last day of class is tomorrow. The last three months of slaving, crying, and hating on projects don't seem much like school at all... In hindsight... and I guess that's a good sign that I'm in the right career path.

On a side note, I think it is every December that I cut my bangs short and get a big red blotch on the tip of my nose. Fuck you, christmas, I am not Rudolph.

Oops.

Being 3 in the morning in the last stretch towards final review, I've decided now is the right time to update this thing on the entire semester in which I've neglected recording any of the precious little moments in my life. Oops. Well, I'm always surprised at the kind of shit life can throw at me, because every year I think there isn't anything new to scare the living daylights out of me. I won't go into detail, I guess, because I really don't want to make myself any more stressed than I already am in my delicate near final review state.

So today was a great, warm, sunny day for playing hooky on studio and spending time with my two favorite people! Ben, Molly and I took off from our models and went to Costco (It's been a long time since I've been to a Costco) to appease our inner fatties. We basically drove 7 miles to find out that ramen is cheaper at Wal Mart. Who knew? After our wholesale adventure, we returned to studio only to goof off with spray paint, super glue, and Miley Cyrus. I basically live for nights like these. Tomorrow, however, will suck.

I thought I'd have more to say about the last few months. Oh well.

<$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.