Sometimes it's just sexier to be fake

The fire tickled the fresh-cut logs, as the scent of isolation painted the cabin with cozy stillness.

My new husband and I, obnoxiously sappy amid the first 48 hours of our marriage, stepped over the threshold (a word only acknowledged by new brides, never to be used again) of the mountain retreat that was our honeymoon.

Visions of sugarplums, porch swings, bird songs and calling each other "schmoopy" in the shadows of the fireplace danced through my head. No cell service or Internet. Just a stack of books, a teapot, my beloved and... two terrified eyes gaping at me from a decapitated head that had been nailed to the wall.

It wasn't the remnants of a voodoo ceremony or an ancient Roman battle. It was a bobcat. And an elk. And a deer. And a zoo of hunting trophies, paralyzed in their death for decorative purposes.

Now, I'm not committed enough to be an activist or rich enough to be a Boulderite or a vegan. I grew up in the mountains and learned how to brandish a shotgun before I could dress myself.
I've killed a snake with a shovel and eaten elk jerky and even Rocky Mountain oysters.

I just think it's gross to hang them on my body.

Decorating your house with preserved carcasses is like wearing a real fur coat or snakeskin boots. My closet is more sparkly and impractical than a Vegas showgirl's bustier, but it is not deceased. I own a floor-length faux fur black cape, a fake fur hand muff, and I recently acquired an Urban Outfitters coat made entirely out of fake feathers (which, according to the drunk guys who stopped me on New Year's Eve, actually looks like woolly mammoth or perhaps pterodactyl).

My closet boasts more faux leather skirts and corsets than food crumbs stuck in all of the Hell's Angels' beards combined. And I have enough fake snakeskin to clothe a fake python long enough to fake squeeze a fake elephant to fake death -- and subsequently enough of said elephant's imitation ivory jewelry to build a tower for at least half of Boulder to sit in.

My statement isn't political; it's fashionable. We are not cavemen, so we have options to not have to rub against rotting bones, flesh and fur of dead animals. Why don't we crystallize livers and hang them from our earlobes, or concoct an entire dress out of meat slabs? Oh wait, Lady Gaga did.

Let me explain something here.

When I first met my husband, before that one day I used the word "threshold," his mutt of a dog, Stitch, was almost a deal-breaker. Stitch is like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown, except instead of dust, she constantly walks in a cloud of white dog fluff. If I try to sweep up her hair, before I get to the dustpan, the hair has already regenerated in every corner -- even if Stitch is locked outside. She actually drops tiny hair seed pods, which procreate when they touch oxygen and then multiply exponentially, like Gremlins, or H1N1, or the terrifying trend of jeggings.

More than half of my waking hours are spent trying to escape animal fur; the idea of intentionally swathing my body with it makes me twitch.

I am sure there are more profound reasons to protest fur apparel, just like I'm sure Lady Gaga had some underlying sanity to her bloody steak suit. But for me, I've got enough leverage to stand my ground on the mere evolution out of the Neanderthal and into a species with more options, and better-smelling synthetics. Ones that don't spy on you with shell-shocked, frozen eyeballs while you're trying to get your honeymoon on.

Perverted bobcats.

Reba: Home weird home

Reba is weird. I love her.

Reba's apartment is a museum of the world's most amusing flea market items. It's a gallery of conversation pieces. It is, in and of itself, a work of art.

Public speaker Patricia Fripp once said style is being yourself, but on purpose. My childhood friend Reba's home is like diving inside her beautifully mad brain and backstroking across her dreams. It's the most alive building I've ever walked through, a character. And a dangerous inspiration.

Reba's living room boasts not one, but two, sets of mannequin legs. One rests upside down between the green nightstand, barely wide enough to support her television, and Charlie McCarthy, the ventriloquist doll, who I simultaneously want to hug and set on fire.

Full-scale skeletons dance on Reba's walls year-round, along with a sad clown portrait made out of yarn, various robots, a picture of a dog in a tuxedo and an oversized landscape of a German castle. She uses old doors for picture frames and a newspaper rack for dishes.

On some street in Oregon that I forget but it was cool. Being stalked by a cardboard wolf.

 

She adorned her kitchen table -- and four mismatched chairs -- with decoupaged coffee bags, and she let her 6-year-old son, River, decorate the bottom of the table. He chose hundreds of googley eyeballs. When new people visit, Reba excitedly ushers them under the table to lie and gaze at her son's creation.

Spend 10 minutes in this apartment and you'll feel like you've known Reba for 20 years. It's the opposite of a beige Pottery Barn showroom house that could be anyone's. Reba's house couldn't
be anyone else's. That's what makes it so glorious.

I visited her in Oregon last week, and returned home to an office that had relocated from a 120-year-old station on the Pearl Street Mall to a modern business park in east Boulder. At the new desk, first I noticed the cleanliness (more than a century of newsprint, yellowed papers and journalist tears really crusts up a place). Then, I jumped out of my chair. This order was uncomfortable. My desk needed flair. And a little crust. Just enough for character.

My first reaction was to hit up one of the Pearl Street shops that I've grown addicted to over the past 10 years (gross, I'm old) at the Daily Camera. Urban Outfitters. Goldmine Vintage. But that was no longer my 'hood. I wept three tears.

I needed to trailblaze east Boulder, like Christopher Columbus blazed the Atlantic, or like Russell Brand explored every woman east of Wales.

My sense of adventure and lack of finances led me to the Salvation Army on 33rd Street. After I ran across a cookbook so ancient that it was growing a new variation of mushrooms, I knew I was home.

My house, albeit lacking eyeballs on the underside of the table, has its own energy. Obnoxiously bright walls, furniture from the 1950s and '60s and even pictures of a glittery unicorn and a hologram wolf (both gifts) (amazing). I'll never claim my house is immaculate, and I'll never pretend I'm rich. But I am proud of my odd little nest that reads about me like my own palm.

At the Salvation Army, I found records for 49 cents each. Frames for $1.30. Books for 49 cents. I almost bought three dozen Chinese literature books (for the colorful pictures of birds and mustached men), but instead, I opted for two Whitman classical books, printed in 1955. Ever blasphemous, I ripped out my favorite sketches from "Five Little Peppers" -- of a girl crying, burglars breaking into a house and a gaggle of kids writing a letter -- and I framed them.

Nearby on my desk, I hung three record covers that make me laugh, including "Sing Along with the Honkey-Tonks," and I bought an old milk pitcher to hold my pens. I found a wooden jewelry box to organize my office supplies (paper clips, sticky notes and lipsticks). I used the records to divide up my desk. The grand revamp: $8.45.

As I complete my first article in the Camera's new quarters, I feel a little greedy, like I get the best of both worlds: a modern office without asbestos flaking into my tea, and a little old-fashioned weirdness, to remind me of where we came from.

I even decorated the underside of my desk, in honor of River. Feel free to peek under there. The carpet's clean of journalist sludge.



At least for now.