“Only New Orleans is real… [4]

No one would possibly believe how serious I am about this next part. But I am serious. About as serious as anyone can be.

I flew into New Orleans with a metallic baby pink wheeled carry-on, a backpack that I had painted ‘DONE’ on above a Nike swoosh, and a sizable over-the-shoulder bag. That’s all I had left. The rest, or most of the rest, is stashed in a Safe Storage or Public Room or some kinda name like that a couple blocks from the Design District in Miami. If you haven’t been there, I’d go. Go as curious as you can be and with as few ideas as possible. It wasn’t so absurd to me then. I was normalized to people wearing $3,250 tennis shoes that were ugly. Don’t get me wrong. I can appreciate haute couture. I actually have a taste for it. But if something is ugly, it’s ugly. No statement is worth making unless it’s in some way beautiful, imho. And look, I’d really be the first to say, ‘Do what you love because you love it.’ But you quickly see in Miami, what’s love isn’t really love. At least not the kind you take care of. I lived there forrrr hmmm.. 7 years with about 6 or 8 months here and there out of town. I didn’t know how much or how deeply I loved it, really loved it, even loved the not-love love, until much later.

As I was saying, so no furniture obviously fit in the described bags and my place didn’t have anything in it except a shower curtain liner, a teacup-terrier-sized trashcan in the bathroom, and some potty accessories. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on furnishing a place nor was I that comfortable doing it. Who knew how long I’d be here. I hadn’t had furniture that was my own, a house of it, for a long, long time. My lease was 6 months but if god called and the winds blew, so I’d go.

This is really the magic part, the part you wouldn’t believe until you do — let’s start with the finished product.

Yeah, all by the touch of my finger. No, this isn’t about the magic of the internet, though that is impressive and certainly worth contemplating, like really. It’s about resonance.

I pulled most of that together, no sh!t, by putting my fingers on my laptop screen and feeling my way through options. The furniture, the rug, the pillows, the blanket, my bedroom suite and linens, came from what felt warm’n’cozy to my finger tips. I’m not even kidding. I told you this was serious.

That’s honestly how I picked everything for my place. My grandma, who didn’t think I had a domestic bone in my body, was so impressed with my decorating she wanted me to send a picture of it to my last bf so he would be able to see ‘what I could do.’ I even told her, Look, I picked pretty much on blind faith in my finger tips. She said Whatever it took.