much better

Now that I never leave the apartment, the arrangement of my surroundings seems to direct my daily activities more than ever. Like lately, I’ve been watching a little more TV than I should, and I became quickly convinced that there were certain Feng Shui related reasons for this.

Our TV, a 40 inch HD gleaming hulk of polycarbonate sat squarely in the center of our home. It was the first thing I saw coming out of the bedroom each morning. A trip from any one place to any other in the apartment meant walking past it--and by any place, I pretty much mean the bathroom. To even just sit on the couch for a short break meant staring into its inviting vastness. It’s even the first thing to greet us when we enter the front door, except of course for her lordship our cat.

So, on a whim yesterday, I decided to rearrange the entire apartment.

On requesting permission from my wife—which I was told later sounded more like a statement of intent—she replied, “Can’t you clean out the closets or something instead?”

But even she admits that things are much nicer now. Our living room is now oriented towards the large sliding glass window, which offers a lush treetop view that mostly cancels out the appearance of a Schoeps Ice Cream factory. Another added benefit is that we can again see our plants, which have struggled over the years through a combination of neglect and the unsupervised access of the cats.

Of course, we’ll have to figure something else out when the Wisconsin winter leaves its annual six foot snow pile on our balcony. It might get chilly staring at the wall of our igloo all day.