Home is where your ass is....

Much has been made of the general lack of decoration in my apartment, mostly by the best friend's girlfriend. She finds it depressing, I'm told. Since the best friend's girlfriend (BFGF) is also one of The Remix's best friends, I get double the insight into her disapproval of my home situation.

Let me enlighten you, then, on what exactly Casa de DJ looks like. I live out in the Chicago suburbs, a safe distance away from the irregular din of the city, but close enough I can still go out for a nine dollar beer if the urge takes me. (Which it rarely if ever does.) I live in a building that's about thirty years old, in an apartment with picture rail and pale yellow walls. I don't do much in the way of furniture, the ex-wife took care of that with her amazing propensity to buy low-quality, overpriced couches and end table on a regular basis. (Side note, the ex still needs a clever yet anonymous blog name, management is working on it.)

The furniture I do have is atrocious. An ancient, burnt orange sofa with matching lazy-boy, both older than I am and recently rescued from my grandpa's basement. Apparently the people were considerably shorter thirty years ago, because the seat cushions are mere inches from floor level. The lazy boy is full of deceptive crevices, where quarters and cigarette lighters vanish into oblivion.

I have two cats, something of an anomaly for a straight male, fuck you if you have a problem with that. I like my cats, even if they cover the furniture in blonde and black fur, scratch up the armrests, and occasionally bite unprovoked. I also have two coffee tables. They do less biting, but offer nothing in the way of companionship.

One of the coffee tables is just an enormous slab of heavily varnished driftwood perched on four sections of tree trunk. It is the kind of coffee table you could park a truck on. Unfortunately, it is also the single ugliest piece of furniture i have ever seen. I love it. The coffee table that I actually use, more for a place to set the ashtray than anything coffee-related, is not as ugly. Worn out, flimsy, and horribly stained, but functional.

The focal point of the apartment is clearly the TV. The only thing organized in my entire living space is my immaculately alphabetized collection of DVDs and video games. I don't know what that says about me as a person, and I don't particularly care. My bills are strewn all over my desk, usually paid. I have boxes and boxes of books, open but not on display, which I also love. I don't have a bookshelf, which is why I've yet to unpack.

The bedroom is similarly spartan. No pictures on the walls, anywhere in the apartment. Strange, paisley sheets, broken blinds, a reading lamp with two-thirds of the bulbs out. Dirty laundry in one corner, clean in the other.

It's not much. It's not home, by a long shot. It is a place to sleep, to get away from everyone else. It's my place. And I love it.