This is Bishop Desmond Tutu's view from the bar in the kitchen. I know his water looks dirty; I've tried to talk to him about keeping his room clean, and I even made up a little chore chart with shiny star stickers for each day, and then at the end of an entire week of stars I'll take him to the arcade or the water park or what have you, but whenever I mention this, he goes into his room and slams the door and a few minutes later Heart-Shaped Box comes pounding through the wall.

My friend Tad gave me this creepy/awesome Jesus/Mary hologram picture to hang in our bathroom, which is decorated in a Jesus theme. It's the first thing you see when you step out from the shower, and man, there's just nothing like drying off in front of the Lord and/or his mom every morning.

Laura gave me this scarf a few Christmases ago, and it's the main reason I can't wait for it to get cold again every year. I think she bought it at the Gap, which makes little to no sense, but even stranger is the fact that I've never seen anyone else with the same scarf.

That's a lowercase b, not a d, by the way. I flipped the image originally but it was blowing my mind so I'm leaving it this way.

This is Emancipatia, the anti-drunk-dialing mammy thimble. Erin and Brian brought her back from Branson, Missouri last Thanksgiving, after witnessing me deal with some infuriating text messages and phone calls that had the poor timing of coming through while I was drinking with them, totally throwing off our whole laid back, sitting around on the couch and making fun of DeKinder vibe. I keep Emancipatia by my bed now, and whenever I look at her, I hear Brian's falsetto voice saying, "Now Miss Sarah, you know you don' wanna be callin' that boy!" Everyone needs one of these. They should hand them out at bars.

Emacipatia leads pretty smoothly into this next one, which was a birthday gift from my friend Sarah. She found it on eBay, and check out the boxtop:

Apparently Avon for Men had a line of Presidential Decanter Colognes in 1975. And apparently Abraham Lincoln smelled a lot like your grandpa's poker buddies. Everyone who smells it says, "Ew, it smells like old dads!" That's just the smell of emancipation, ladies! That's the smell of WILD COUNTRY!

This was my Christmas present this year from Tony and Emily. The simple line drawing is exquisite, right down to the way they've perfectly captured Dorothy's smirk. I now own two T-shirts with Bea Arthur on them. Does that count as a hobby?

This picture always hangs in my bathroom, no matter where I live. Emily took a photography class in college, and her final project had to be some sort of photo essay in less than ten frames. It started with me relaxing in the bath, and then an intruder came in and startled me and there was a struggle with a lot of splashing, and it ended with me getting killed in the tub, green food coloring floating in the water like blood. Emily decided to start shooting on the next-to-last night of finals week in December at about 11 pm. I hadn't slept for two days, so putting on my bathing suit and climbing into her bathtub sounded like a good idea. Then she set up the bright lights and there we were, me in the tub and her behind the camera, and we both felt a little weird, so she got me a beer and turned on a CD and then I loosened up, which I'm sure is how many horrible and wonderful stories begin. My mom called in the middle and asked what I was doing, and I said, "Oh, Emily's taking pictures of me in the bathtub."