Leela's Profile

Nicest find, on my old block in Sunset Park: A giant, deep velvet chair, perfect for curling up with a good book, and miraculously free of bugs of any kind.

Weirdest find, years ago, in a blah neighborhood of Boston: An old man must have passed away, because there was a large amount of depressing, evocatively mundane stuff put out in the street - old clothes, half-filled cereal boxes, and such. In amongst the detritus of a dull life, we found a HUGE amount of ancient porn. The earliest example was a genuine Tijuana bible, and the latest was an issue of Oui Magazine from the early 80's, featuring creepy images of Ozzy Osbourne and Motorhead posing with drugged-looking, orange-skinned models. The 70's were also well-represented. But the bulk of the magazines were 50's and 60's "men's magazines", full of cheeky pin-ups, war stories, and ads for trusses and marital aids. There were also many black and white nudist magazines with an air of innocence that is lost now. I had an image in my mind of the man's daughters cleaning out his apartment, throwing away his stash in disgust before the rest of the family comes over, not knowing how interesting a time capsule it might be to a trio of college students down the street. This may not be at all what happened, but I like my story.

I try not to kill spiders, but I am extremely arachnophobic, so I make my husband deal with them. However, we don't see many in Brooklyn. What we do see are German cockroaches. Twice, I have found HUGE, ROILING BALLS of them in the corners of my kitchen bookshelf, behind the cookbooks and folded dishtowels (and we are pretty clean). I cannot even describe how many roaches there were. Now I put two Raid Max or Combat baits per corner, per shelf, and I have seen no roaches in well over a year.

If I see a waterbug (the 3-inch flying roach) in my home, it is dead. I take a glass bowl, put a few drops of tea tree oil in it, and invert it over the sucker. Why? Because I refuse to touch it, even with a shoe. I also really hate centipedes, but I've heard that they eat roaches, so I try to let them be, unless seen in the shower. Then it's bye-bye. We're planning to move to a more buggy, warm part of the country eventually, so I'm going to have to just deal.

I know that there are only two poisonous spider species in the US, but something bit me bad in my sleep when I lived in Boston, and as far as I know, that place doesn't support either species. It made my stomach hurt, and then I got dizzy and my knees, elbows, and back broke out in a red rash and my skin prickled all over for the rest of the day, as though I had a fever. The bite site still has a scar. Of course I was young and stupid, so I didn't go to a doctor, just went to my crappy job and waited to feel better. Ick. To this day I don't know what it was.

Whoa, this is great. Reminds me of James Lileks' Interior Desecrators book:

http://lileks.com/institute/interiors/index.html

and also from his site:
http://lileks.com/institute/motel/index.html

Shoes *OFF*. Off off off. The soles of your shoes track in grime, fecal matter, and, apparently, lead residue, and all kinds of other stuff. We don't have kids yet, so for us it isn't about that - why bring the outside in? It's nasty out there in the streets and on the subway. I can't believe people don't think about that.

I spent a lot of time as a kid in a dojo so this was just second nature to me, but I have been shocked by some peoples' hostility to the idea. I think wearing shoes inside is disrespectful.

I wish we had this in NYC!

Hmm...looking at the photos made me feel hemmed in and sad. This just looks like sleeping in one's office, and what could be more depressing than that? That's a notch above sleeping in your car.

I know from experience that Paris apartments can be smaller than New York apartments, and strangely laid-out, but this looks like a bummer of a solution to me, unless you are neat as a pin and own practically nothing. Otherwise it could feel like you're literally sleeping in your closet, surrounded by disarray. Surely there are more uplifting (no pun intended) solutions for small spaces.

I usually make my own scrubs, but this stuff breaks my homemade rule. It's amazing!

I prefer salt to sugar...sugar doesn't seem to do anything for my skin, but salt makes it glow. Don't know why.

Anyway, Trader Joe's! Fantastic!