I'm Looking For Something In A Padded Wall

Upon climbing out of a deep depression, it often helps to have a project to keep oneself busy. Something into which you can pour your time, energy and unexpectedly large bonus check.
As I mentioned earlier, Sister is not staying in our palatial 1,100 square foot, $2,000 per month (Ed. Note: that figure gets completely opposite reactions from New Yorkers and people who live elsewhere, though the words are usually exactly the same. Non-New Yorkers will exclaim 'You pay $2,000 a month for this?!', believing the rent to be astronomical and akin to my walking over to my landlord's once a month, grabbing my ankles and taking it like man (Note to Self: Self, you need to get laid. Bad.), while New Yorkers respond 'You pay $2,000 a month for this?!', because my apartment is ginormous by New York standards, and in a great neighborhood) 2 bedroom apartment in Hell's Kitchen - Clinton to you real estate brokers. But let's be honest kids, NO ONE who lives here calls it Clinton. No one anywhere, save for real estate brokers and the occasional tourist reading a taxi map, calls it Clinton. It's Hells Kitchen. Always has been, always will be. A rose by any other name will still be gentrified just as quickly. So Step off my Region, Kay?
Anyways, after looking at several shitholes in my neighborhood that were half the size on the top floors of 6 floor walkups with a 15% broker's fee, I made the power real estate move of resigning my lease.
Because I realized something: I have a nice fucking apartment. The problem is that it's filled with all of Sister's not-so-nice shit.
You see, over the years, Sister has thrown out approximately, um, nothing.
There is camping equipment in my apartment. Honest to God camping equipment. Why? I have no idea. She said she might use it some day. 2 years we've lived here, and never once has she set off into the wilds of Central Park to pitch a tent, fire up the hot plate and commune with what passes for nature in Manhattan. Fuck, I would have been satisfied if she had gathered all of our houseplants into the living room and pretended she was outside if it meant that she could justify the presence of the camping stove currently taking up space in my kitchen.
We have a saw. Why? Again, I have no idea. A saw in a Manhattan apartment is like an Amish video game. It makes no fucking sense. Last I checked we weren't buying any lumber. But we have a saw. I could see the use for it, but then I realized it's much easier to dissolve the bodies in acid in the tub and...um, a saw. We have a saw.
The list goes on and on.
Aside from having roughly 3 houses worth of shit crammed into one apartment, the real problem is that none of it matches. When I moved into this apartment a month before Sister, I decorated in gay sleek chic. Matching picture frames, clean lines. Neutral tones. I didn't have much (those were the unemployed-Ikea-popcorn for dinner years), but it had a flow. The way Sister moves into a space makes my heart sad. Furniture culled from my parents' and grandmother's house, knicknacks made by her friends. Large holes punched in the walls to haphazardly hang mismatched picture frames from one end of the wall to the other. Within days everything I own had been moved into my room due to both lack of space and out of refusal to be associated with Sister's ragtag assembly of misfit belongings. That is not to say that our place doesn't have a certain shabby chic kind of charm. Just with a little more emphasis on the shabby end of things.
And then there's the iguana. The 3 ft long useless belt and matching shoes in training that does nothing but crap and take up 45 cubic feet of my living room with its tank. A tank that Sister's friends made and surprised her with on her birthday. Trust, Children, she was not the one registering the look of shock when the door flew open and the tank was paraded over the threshold like the spoils of the failed war on bad taste. I'm relatively certain a little piece of my soul died that afternoon.
So she's leaving. And taking all her shit with her. And my new roommate has nothing to his name save for books and his bed.
For years I have longed to live like a grown up. I want hard wood. I want sconces (yeah, I said sconces. What of it, Bitches?) I want a couch that doesn't date back to my high school days. I hate my current bedroom setup. And if I don't want to be in there, no one else is going to either, right?
I got me a West Elm catalog. I got me a big fat bonus check. I got me a need to start over. I've already picked out paint colors, a new kitchen table and some shelving. In the next few weeks I'll post some Before, During and After pics (OK, it will be over a month before we get to the 'after' pics, so sit and wait, Bitches.)
And when it's done, you're all invited for the house rewarming. Provided you hit up the wishlist and buy me some hot new stemless wine glasses. Or a martini set. Or that Bose iPod stereo I've had my eye on.