Flower on Display

For Valentine's Day, Alicia and I bought some flowers for the apartment (I bought them for her technically, but she was there helping). The idea was that I wouldn't put all the flowers in a vase. So here's the flower that made its way to my desk area.

The vase I'm using here is actually a glass liquor bottle I bought in Italy. It held lemonchello, a lemon based liquor. I made the mistake of hoarding the liquor (because it was special to me... I did buy it in Italy) instead of enjoying it. Of course, it went bad about a year ago. I would have thought alcohol would hold up for awhile (to be fair, it did stay good for approximately 3 years), but it just stopped tasting like anything worth keeping.

So, just last week, I finally got the courage to empty it down the drain and use the bottle. I think it looks great. Thoughts?

As a side note, splitting up a bouquet of flowers around the apartment is a great idea. Just use some spare drinking glasses. Here's some pictures of the flowers we arranged:

Goth Stan on Display

This here's the character Stan from the television show South Park. This guy's actually a bizarre figurine, since it only refers to one specific episode.

In that episode, his girlfriend Wendy breaks up with him. Heart broken, he decides to hang with the goth kids. "In order to hang with us, the non-conformists," they tell him, "you have to dress exactly like us and listen to the same music." So this vinyl figure is Stan dressed up as a "goth." He usually meets the other goth kids at Denny's at midnight and drinks coffee while writing poetry.

I got Goth STan approximately four years ago. My parents bought me a winter hat with The Legend of Zelda's crest on the front. At the time, I didn't really wear anything with stuff on it, so I exchanged the hat for Goth Stan. And here he is! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Displaying My Junk

One of the hard parts of living in a small space is enjoying all your junk. You know, that stuff that you really like or that has emotional significance, but doesn't do anything. In a big house, I'd probably have a basement where I could display it all. But here in Brooklyn, most of my favorite things end up in a box in the closet.

You may have read about how Alicia and I rearranged our bedroom. After buying a new Billy bookcase from Ikea for Christmas, I've suddenly got a small surplus of space in my desk area. Here's my little area:



See that spot, right there?



It's free space! Every week, I intend on putting one item on display there. I plan on cycling through the junk that's sitting in boxes, putting one thing on display every week. If I'm good, I will even write a blog post each week about my newest display item.

I'm really excited about enjoying my old stuff, even documenting and archiving my memories of it. I hope you'll join me.