Day 244- Interior design and how much I don't care what your office looks like

Dear Mr. President,

My room is a mess. I often have several piles of "clean" "not clean" and "questionable" laundry lying around, coffee mugs lining my window sil and bookcases, a perpetually unmade bed and a dresser I started painting in my time of mourning after my best friend left and have never finished. My walls are covered in old photos, posters, paintings done on cardboard and a giant Palestinian flag. Three of my bookshelves I inherited from a roommate relocating abroad, another I bought for $20 at a thrift store, and another was salvaged out of the dumpster when a neighbor threw it out. The books on them are organized into two categories: "relevant to my major" and "not". They are not alphabetized.

Clearly, I'm not an individual with much sense for interior design. I understand that my room's chaos would make most people crazy, but luckily it is my room and most people don't have to spend any time there. This is how I feel about your office. Granted, you have important meetings in the Oval office so you can't exactly leave your laundry sorted in piles on the floor. But when it comes to color scheme or furniture selection, I feel like you, as the person who has to spend the most time looking at the inside of your office, should probably be allowed to decorate it however you want. So when I heard that people were actually upset about this, and that respected, intelligent journalists with a huge reading audience and enough common sense to know better were writing about this, I was disgusted.

The Oval Office, the classiest, most powerful place on earth, is now suffused with browns and beiges and leather and resembles an upscale hotel conference room or a ’70s conversation pit with a boxy coffee table that even some Obama aides find ugly.

Maureen Dowd really needs a new editor. Since when, first of all, is the Oval Office the classiest place on earth? Who cares what it looks like? Dowd goes on to say "The recession redo, paid for by the nonprofit White House Historical Association, was the latest tone-deaf move by a White House that was supposed to excel at connection and communication. Message: I care, but not enough to stop the fancy vacations and posh renovations." So, it isn't classy enough but it's too "posh" for these economic times? I'm confused. How much personal luxury is acceptable for a President during a recession?

The added shot about "fancy vacations" is a reference to Dowd's previous gripe about the First Lady's vacation to Spain. Does Maureen Dowd not realize that we have actual problems? Her influence allows her a tremendous amount of power and to waste that week after week on these non-issues is really disappointing. I'm sure that you don't pay much attention to these absurd complaints, but just in case I want you to rest assured that I, for one, couldn't care less what kind of color scheme you chose for your office.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey