The passage of eleven days has soothed most though not all wounds. Janet got her couch in, although that cost me twenty bucks. How! you ask? Simple. For the past year or so, the hard top for my jeep lived happily on the back porch, but it had to move to make way for the movers to bring the couch up. I suggested that since the people coming to bring the couch in would be, ahem, movers, that perhaps we should just ask them to do it. Janet found this idea most perplexing, and trusted my suggestion about as far as she could throw me.

See, what I don't get is she thinks nothing of badgering me to fix her grill, to make the phones work, to throw all of my furniture out, and buy cable for the TV in her room, but God forbid she lays the slightest bit of pressure on the fucking movers to take five minutes to move my fucking hardtop. Well, actually the reason is simple. They'd likely say, you didn't pay us for that, we're not doing, so we move your couch so we'll leave it here on the street and you can go fuck yourself. So, she bugs good old Colin, who will grumble under his breath and capitulate.

Anyway, I suggested that we ask the movers, and if they grumbled, I'd toss them a few bucks. What could it take. So anyway, she woke me up this past Saturday to let me know that she'd invited some roughnecks she knew over to move the top, and had agreed that I would pay them twenty bucks to do it. Thus moving her couch ended up costing me money.

So anyway, the place is starting to take its final shape, and that means it's time for everyone's favorite part of the show. That's right, it's time for Before and After pictures!

First, let's take a look at my old kitchen. Note the box of garbage bags conveniently located on the counter where they are easy to get to, as well as the toolbox next to the stovetop. As everyone knows, the kitchen is a great place to store your tools because it provides a flat surface above the floor. It's essential to keep the floor clear so you can store garbage and empty bottles there.

Next stop on the tour, the living room, PCRE (pre chick roommate era). This displays all the important qualities of the den of a bachelor in the wild. First, you have the decoration: two cheesy pictures still in their palstic bags set carelessly on the mantel and an American flag hung in the window. Next to the all-important TV are the boxes for a shop vac bought over two years ago, and a DVD player now three months old. Off to the left we have a whiteboard and the rear window for my Jeep. Since I can't park the car in a garage I figure I might as well bring as many parts inside as I can. Most importantly, though, notice the couches. They are white, in fair shape (could use a wash), very comfortable for sleeping on (as more than a few of my readers know), and most important, sectional. See, a sectional sofa is the most utilitarian piece of furniture to have in a city apartment. It takes one person to move it and you can fit it through a mail slot. Janet, if you are reading this, that was a hint.

Finally we come to the back porch. As you can see, my roommates and I made excellent use of this afterthought, storing a whole bunch of junk there that would have clashed with the theme we had going in the living room. The only other idea I'd had there was to make the top from my jeep into a canopy for my bed, but that seemed a bit soft for my tastes.

And now the after... Let's go back to the kitchen. Actually I consider this a major success story for me. The kitchen area itself is still cluttered with a minor amount of "my stuff" while the useless crap factor is quite low. Of course the sets of mathcing plates and dishes in the cabinets give the lie to this picture, but you can't see that from the outside. Unfortunately, as you will soon see, me with the kitchen is like Macarthur in the Philippines in 1941. I still have it, but the enemy is closing fast around me...

Take for instance, this little piece, which takes up an entire wall and serves almost entirely as a place to put useless crap. The only saving grace is that Janet relented on maintaining my moderate collection of rare and expensive liquors. Otherwise it serves mainly as a place to put bowls, which are used to hold yet more useless crap. But I digress...

On to the living room, post move. Here you see the full depth of my degradation. First, while the crappy cheap pictures are still there, you'll see Janet was nice enough to hang a Sargent print of a Spanish dancer over the fireplace, since "you need something there." My suggestion of a stuffed wild boar head did not take, I cannot see why. Next, note the lack of car parts and general disarray, replace by a very delicate gold-and-purple bench off to the left. I'm starting to turn gay already. Finally and most traumatically, my fine and noble couch is gone, replaced by these two overstuffed and undignified behemoths, which Janet had the temerity to describe as being "not very girly." Okay, not as girly as a lace-ruffled nightie, but certainly double-Y chromosome. To prevent such future trauma from befalling any of you, I present a simple checklist for determining whether a piece of furniture is "very girly."

• Pillow backs: Proper furniture uses cushions, which do not wiggle out of the way when your buddy tells you to slide your fat ass over. I don't care, this is just plain impractical.
  
• Fancy fabric: Just because she says it's all white don't mean it's safe. Girly furniture can be very sneaky, using all sorts of patterns in the fabric to create an end result that would fit perfectly in a barbie dollhouse.
  
• More than 1 pillow. Period.
  

Lastly, we'll stop by the deck for one last look. The table and chairs by themselves are fine, and the new barbecue is actually rather nice. But you can't stop there, oh no. I forgot to take a picture, but next to the door is a lovely little I don't know what you call it, some shelves and stuff, whose sole purpose appears to be to store and display five or six little novelty items the purpose of which escapes me completely. I guess they look cute. You'll see an example in the left-hand side, by the railing. Look again, isn't it cute, it's a star! All I can say is, what the fuck? I don't get it. Do I object categorically? No, I have in recent years mellowed on this, and now say, if it makes you happy, fine. But I still don't get it.

See, what all this comes down to is a very simple biological difference between men and women. With females we speak often of the "nesting instinct," which appears to drive members of the fairer sex into building fluffier and brighter home environments, presumably to create a helthy environment for raising the young'uns. Well, we men have a similar instinct, but see for us, it's all about the cave. You gals accuse us of being neanderthals, and you're right. All we want is a nice dark room with only one opening to defend, and a big crackling fire in the middle. The evidence is irrefutable. Go back three hundred years to the drawing rooms of old England, and they're always bright and airy and fluffed up. The gentleman's rooms, however, like his study, or game room, were dark and often windowless, filled with smoke and leather.

Vive la difference, the saying goes, and I'll go along with it, but dammit, all I want is a little corner of the cave to myself!  ¶ 7:57 PM 0 Comments