Before/After

My domicile is finally clean and mold-free. I ended up using the spray bleach, even though there were some very helpful suggestions in the comments of other cleaning products to use. Your efforts were not in vain, Comments People! I only used the bleach because it was in my apartment, as opposed to the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, which were in the store. But Evil Roommate seems determined to live in squalor, so I'm sure I will need to buy some new cleaning products soon, and then your advice will come in quite handy.

Of course, as soon as my apartment is livable and sterile and clean, Los Angeles remembers that it is disgusting. All the rain we had in the last two months, while annoying, dreary, and, for a few, fatal, had one big positive effect: it, combined with the cooler "winter" weather, took the smog away. So we had clear, clean air and I realized that Los Angeles is actually surrounded by hills and mountains, which were not visible in the smog. Oh, but it was beautiful!

This week, the smog returned. I hadn't realized how thick and dirty it was until I had something to compare it to. You can compare it, too! Here are two pictures of the Hollywood sign, before and after the smog, taken from the same distance:





In related news, here's a picture of my lungs, also before and after the smog:



How did I get a picture of my lungs, you ask? With SCIENCE, of course!

So those are some ugly pictures, I know. But they're beauty queens when compared to this picture I found on Pamie's site:



Someone once said in my comments thread that English people traditionally don't photograph well. I guess this picture can serve as evidence of that. While Rebecca looks as stunningly beautiful as she always does, my incredible paleness, combined with the camera flash, has given me a complexion not unlike that of a KKK member...'s sheet. A sheet with a burgeoning double chin and jowls (where the hell did those come from? I never noticed them before, and I'm pretty sure I don't have them now). Lighting, my hunched sitting position, and the fact that I'm wearing at least two layers of clothing, the topmost of which has that huge collar, have combined to give me what appears to be both a humpback AND back fat. As for my hair, I'll let that slide because it was probably two in the morning when this picture was taken and I've gotten it done since then besides. I just want to remind everyone that I usually look FABULOUS, as to which this picture, taken a few months before the other one, can attest:



I look so awesome in this picture that even Great Aunt Muriel is shocked. That's especially impressive when you consider the fact that Muriel lived in London during World War Two, during which London was bombed by the Nazi Blitz:





Actually, Muriel and my grandmother were evacuated during the Blitz, like those kids in the Chronicles of Narnia. They had to go live in the Welsh countryside for a couple years while my great-grandparents stayed in London and hoped they didn't die. They claim not to have found any magic wardrobes during their time in Wales.

You know, as bad as the Los Angeles smog is, it's a lot better than the black smoke of Nazi bombs.