Those pictures of my old bedroom are bringing up all this old stuff for me. I've written about how I didn't have my own bedroom for most of my childhood. I always wanted a blue room, but I had to move into my sister's already decorated yellow and green room, etc. Whine, whine, whine.

Did you guys have your own bedroom growing up? Did the people around you?

I'm going to visit my mom for Mother's Day this year. She still lives in the house I grew up in. Here it is looking like a model home with saplings for trees.

And here's my childhood room. That's me in the plaid being "kidnapped" by Carmen Eden who was assigned to be my "big sister" at school. Basically they'd take you out in your pajamas and make you serenade the Catholic boys at Chaminade.

Notice the very '70s color scheme and the curtain rod hung high to make the ceilings soar... I guess Sue Ellen at Ethan Allen knew what she was doing.

See any other similarities between that room and this?

My friend David gets a little obsessive sometimes. This month he's been on a totem kick. And when I say kick, I mean he's ordered about six or seven of them in the past few months. They're all here drinking tea on his countertop:

I was mostly making fun of him until my officemate Katy Elliott took an interest in them. Did I mention that David also uses me as a doorman to accept his packages at work?

Katy started poking around the website Echoes in Time, where the last totem came from and the next thing you know, I ordered these earrings.

What do we think of the totems? Do I need one for my house? Probably like a need a hole in my head, huh?

Hmmm, does this fabric work as a curtain hanging right next to the tree mural?

Looking forward to this art show that promises to "look at the use of ready-made color--from house paint to vinyl tape--in the work of 44 artists". See more samples of artists who will be featured on Slate.

Talk about procrastination. I have had these pictures of these wood carvers in Tanzania sitting on my desktop for almost a year. I've been stalling because I lost the piece of paper with their names and the name of the company on it, and I didn't want to post about them without it. But alas, they do terrific work and maybe my pal Eileen will see them and post info about who they are or what part of Dar Es Salaam they work in. Or something. The man holding the mirror frame above was the person who did that work.

All of this work is done by hand.

Look at furniture joints? Aren't they gorgeous?

This table makes me happier than just about anything.

The truth is that I don't have anything compelling to say about my apartment right now. I'm thinking about moving and feeling stinky about living in New York to boot. I know from talking to some of you and from listening to a panel at SXSW that Maggie of Mighty Girl and Heather of Dooce hosted about blog boundaries that everyone goes through this "blogger burn out" thing.

My way of dealing with it right now is to tell you about something and someone that does compel me right now: an artist I just met who does terrific sculpture and installations out of human hair. Her name is Loren Schwerd. The picture above is from a series of woven sculptures based on homes and buildings that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

She also created a series of manipulated chairs like this one called Loveseat 6.

I was just down at SXSW and I didn't hear a single computer geek talking about crgslst, this new Craigslist multi-city search. Instead, Holly from decor8 wrote about it yesterday. Does that make her a computer geek? Maybe. But it's really cool.

Spread the word...

If you're going to be there, have a look around for me. I'll be the one skipping panels to go to thrifting.

I think I might try curtains with the vintage fabric. I have this Sy hemming tape from IKEA, which would make it easy to hem them with the iron. Has anyone ever used this on vintage fabric? Think it'll work? I'm just going to do easy panels and if they don't work or look bad I'll just take them down and make pillows with the fabric.

Then imagine that the fabric is smooth and tucked in. In fact, pretend you are that fabric. Do you want to be a chair or window treatment?

Have you met the catties?

That's Djuna, named after author Djuna Barnes, about whom I wrote a chapter of my dissertation. If I were to dare to add anything to a Wikipedia entry, it would be to hers. Not that anything's missing or incorrect, but if it were, I'd know it. Notice the illustrations in her Book of Repulsive women. They're just as much an inspiration for my tree and my bedroom as Aubrey Beardsley or Oscar Wilde.

Djuna the cat, on the other hand, is just a matching accessory, sitting on the unmatching chintz pillow that I have to recover. Possibly in that new vintage fabric...

Of course Emma (pictured here in her CondeNast cafeteria tote) is a better fit in the bedroom. Her eyes match the wall color.

Have you ever heard of such a thing? A room that matches a pet? I think some of the pooches from our Dogs of domino slide show must.

I went to Philadelphia this weekend to visit my genius pal of Pocket Myths fame, Andrea. She indulged my thrift shopping for my house habit and took me to a couple of great places in south Philly, including  Philadelphia AIDS Thrift, where I found a pair of pinching my feet narrow, vintage Ferragamo boots for three bucks, and a bright orange silk outfit that I'm not skinny enough to fit into just yet. Of course what am I wearing to work today? The orange skirt and the boots. Feet and ass haven't fallen off yet, but I'll keep you posted.

Then we went to a store that I'll have to get the name of where I found the fabric you see above for a mere twenty dollars. I mean, you can't beat that with a stick or a bat.

What should I do with it? It's narrowish--44 inches--but I don't have enough to make really full curtains and Isaac (draped here) says it's too much blue for the bedroom. Agreed?