Hey, I am afraid of failure just like everyone else my age. There are things to do, deadlines to meet, and goals to reach in case I unexpectedly die... sexily.
But sometimes when my self-appointed high-pressure lifestyle gets to be too much... it's really fun to distract myself on cool interior design websites.
Listen, I am no decorator; I have a shower curtain over my window and a beanbag chair with an X-marks-the-spot slab of duck tape from 2001.
But I like to fantasize about a life with stainless steal appliances and tasteful driftwood wall decor. I want people to describe my place as "rustic, yet modern." Not "OK," and, "is that a shower curtain over your window?"
Imagine I had a white couch and didn't immediately spill grape pop on it? (Sigh.)
Sometimes when the dishes are piling up and the cat is asleep on a pile of laundry, I like to go on ApartmentTherapy.com and pretend I have my life together, like the people who are featured on the site. The 20-something graphic designer in New York, the fashion magazine editor in San Francisco, the gay power couple in the tree house ranch! These fantastic people who produce clutter-free zones are like royalty to me, born into creatively superior lifestyles.
Framed artwork, industrial light fixtures, and urban goblets -- I have no right to be looking at this stuff! I need to get my nose down to the grindstone and pull my socks up. I need to put in years of elbow grease, and put the pedal to the metal, and all the other phrases I was raised with that have lost all meaning, before I even deserve to look upon an urban goblet.
I need a good meal at a decent price until my "nest egg" not only exists, but would also impress my parents!
Jeeze I'm tired.
Thirty years ago, would my parents blow entire pay cheques on a pricey used treasure chest? No way! And who's kidding whom? Today's treasure chest is simply a storage place for crap, not rubies. People don't possess actual treasure -- people possess video game magazines and really cool Silverchair CDs.
Great authors of a yonder year literally worked in mud by day and wrote their great works tirelessly with a pigeon feather quill and a dirty candle forged of hog by night! They didn't leaf through Ikea catalogs eating a frozen Snickers bar, wondering why no one "likes" their lazy status updates. These days when I compose a tweet, I often struggle, get mildly depressed and momentarily consider becoming a recluse, until I remember, oh yeah, I can totally just tweet that cats are pretty amazing, and I am safe for another day. I should be shot.
I'd honestly like to think I would get some substantial drive and painstaking work done if my home décor was updated. I can picture me now, collapsed upon my ironic electric blue chaise lounge, fashionably exhausted from accomplishing so much that day. Yeah, that's the ticket: sweet, sweet materialistic denial. But until the day comes where I am successful enough to afford nice things, I will be sitting on this busted beanbag chair, biting my pen, and imagining myself with a gravy-stain-free life.