So a couple years ago, I was working from home and on what possibly could have been the most boring conference call in my entire professional career. The kind of conference call where you just put the phone on speakerphone and mute it and just let them drone on and on while you make grocery lists or doodle various suicide attempts.

During the call I got a fit of inspiration to make a surprise for Julie, the artist formerly known on this blog as The Roommate®. She had been having a particularly low self esteem week and I wanted to do something to cheer her up.

Julie has taken much good-natured ribbing from me about her annual tradition of making something she calls a "Success Collage" — a visual statement of her goals and dreams for each year. Girlfriend do like her magazines and glue so I decided to use that medium.

I grab some magazines and found the pictures I wanted and put it all together with tape and silly stickers. I posted it on her bedroom door and waited for her to discover it.

Here's what she found.

It was the perfect thing to make her laugh. Many months later I decided to make a Tiger Beat version to join it.



And they have remained on her door ever since.

Fast forward to when Jason, The Boyfriend™, moved in. One day he was standing at their door looking at the collages. He said jokingly, "I was hoping once I moved in here she would have taken these down."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well not so much this one, but the one with the guys."

"Oh please, it means nothing."

"She has a vibrator named after Jake Gyllenhaal."

"It's a BACK MASSAGER!" (And yes, we taped Jake Gyllenhaal's picture to it and named it Jake. We like naming things in this household.)

He pouted but I told him tough noogies. They stay up.

So Friday, I decided the best thing to do was to make Jason feel better would be a collage of his own.

Lo and behold.