Miss Ashley Pants

I did a grand spring cleaning.

It was inspired by this cathartic, domestic urge to purge my domicile of-

Okay. Can’t lie. It was kinda required. We all got this goddamned inspection notice a few weeks back – the day before apartment inspection was due to happen. And being imbued with false pride and a desperate need to keep up an illusory appearance of perfection, I cancelled all of my next day’s appointments just so I could take care of all the things I’m supposed to be doing daily as an upstanding apartment renter: vacuuming, kitchen cleaning, collecting rent money from the family of immigrants living in the linen closet.

(In English, that’s: “Make yourselves at home.”)

And yes, it did take that whole day to accomplish.

But there’s this thing about cleaning. Once you actually start, you realize how fetching the flophouse you pay for (which you’ve been using namely as a place to consume vats of coffee while becoming one with technology) can be. It’s like watching one of those transformational movie makeovers unfold.

1. I wish she’d always rock that Napoleon Dynamite face in the before picture.

2. This makeover would have been successful had she stayed silent the rest of the movie.

3. I digress. Moving on.

Noticing its newfound potential, I wanted to take my sexy apartment to town and get it drunk.

I was in one of those rare innovative moods, too. So I started brainstorming ways to raise the vibes via furniture photoshop and plaid-sick surgery (my couch looks like pajama pants) without spending the money I don’t have.

Without seeing the “before” picture I never took, it’s not that spesh. It’s definitely an improvement – but just looking at it now would be like seeing the “after” snappy of a still pudgy chick who never captured her 500 lb weight loss with her iphone. She knows she busted her ass doing it, but you can never really appreciate it without knowing the depraved darkness in which she once dwelt.

Just like my home.

So, yeah… Added some bright yellows and greens to animate a once drab bedroom. Threw a sleek fleece blanket over the couch for homogenous earth tones. Covered clashing accent pillows with cases that matched – folded underneath to fit. Did some sumo lifting with all’a my improv furniture (“this priceless antique trunk should hold my T.V. nicely!”) across the living room repeatedly – until…finally… I felt the feng shui wash over me.

Or maybe I was just sweating blood by then.

In any case, now that my place looks fine sans dropping a dime, I’m always looking for other ideas to keep it from re-morphing down the course of entropy whose path is laden with dust bunnies so thick they come to life and shit easter eggs while crumbs appear in places that I don’t even effing eat.

Naturally, I’m taking to the net for “yes, and” ideas to my “improv” interior world. In the meantime, here’s a snappy or two of some stuff I’ve done. (For the sake of impressing you, please use the mental imagery of a spray-tagged crack house as your hyperbolic comparative “before” picture):

Previously, the bedclothes were all adorned with unsightly posturepedic pillows.

And the picture was Marilyn Monroe with a sorta slutty quote.

(I liked the quote, but it didn’t match. The framed flowers stolen from my mom’s house did nicely, though.)

And my nook shelf – for two reasons:

1. The living room library is too far away at the day’s end.

2. If need be, I can say, “I’d let you stay the night, but you might spill my tea.”

That’s all for now.