Friday, June 22, 2007

"There are NO Books in Johnny's Room"


Hi there! Did you know that the blog is a little over a year old now? If you subtract the inactive moments I guess then it's really not our birthday but we're celebrating it anyway. Anyway, what awoke us (or me) from the creativity coma? Men's Health Magazine. There was an article on how to figure out if someone is a good match based on some aspects of their apartment. First off, clearly this was not written with New Yorker's in mind. Unless your W-2 has like eight figures on it, your apartment is not a fair representation of your awesomeness or lack there of. Naturally, when I saw the title of this article I immediately skipped past all the cologne and car ads to this important piece of journalism. I needed to know. I needed to know if my distinguished dwelling was communicating something unfavorable about me that was entirely false...or even worse...true. Well, not surprisingly, there weren't really any earth shattering parallels drawn. In fact some of them just sounded made up because some one's deadline was approaching. For example, it said that people who had a lot of candles in their apartment are typically adventurous. Ok. Maybe but how do we know they're not a neurotic environmentalist that tries to use as little electricity as possible? A nice idea in theory. But I'm sure that would be really annoying to be around. Or even worse, they're majorly cheap. There was also the typical reference to the book collection. Ummm...not fair. I think to toss out a romantic prospect because they had Jose Conseco's book or something might be a little judgemental. However the presence of self help books pertaining to unpleasant conditions or dispositions are certainly grounds for dismissal. If you see books regarding Anger Management, debilitating self esteem issues, Idiot's guide to Halitosis or books about getting "rich" doing something really dumb like selling thigh masters out of your garage you've got my vote to head for the hills. Besides, someone should know that those books should at least be hidden or stored off sight anyway. This did raise a concern for me, however. What if you don't have really any books displayed? Does anyone remember the scathing comment about Johnny Castle not having any books in his room as a way of suggesting that he wasn't so bright? Office Knight and I have books, but they were tossed into a coffin size leather ottoman that doubles as a coffee table.

One part did really resonate with me, though. It said that it could be troublesome if some one's alarm clock is more than 10 minutes fast. And didn't elaborate on why. I'm guessing something to do with assuming the person is disorganized or undisciplined. Frankly, I don't think someone should really give a damn if I prefer to "trick" my half-asleep self. Especially if it results in something positive like punctuality. Wouldn't one rather have their significant other wasting their trickery skills on themselves than on them. Obviously, my alarm clock is set more than 10 minutes fast.

Lastly, it mentioned that if the person has a lot of pictures displayed in their apartment where they're in the center of the photograph that they are probably narcissistic. What's wrong with a little narcissism? You're telling me every soccer goalie is conceited? Besides, narcissistic people are usually really good at a lot of stuff and very aesthetically pleasing. Anyway, I gotta go. I gotta go get some candles, a book shelf, re-set my clock, and find some pictures where I flank the group or maybe I'm just plain not in.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm off to revisit the whole book situation. We thought the shelves of books were supposed to make us happy and remind us of fun stuff from the past. (after all, we already read all these books so it's not about reading anyway -- is it?) So, there's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" because it was the kids' favorite book, and a book about rocks in Washington State because I've always meant to take it on a road trip and a book on an Indian tribe in Ecuador that doesn't even exist any more and it's a reminder to enjoy things while you have them, plus one by Ray Mungo who I remember used to do really deep readings of his work while jiggling his baby in a stroller with his foot. They are "books" after all...not like Johnny's room. So one would hope they'll do the job in terms of representing the intellectual stature of the household. Otherwise, maybe it would be good to move the pioneer edition of Shakespeare down to eye level...a twofer, really...history AND culture. Office Mom

clindsay said...

What does it say about people who display Pez dispensers that are designed as Star Wars characters? ;-)