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hi, i'm ash!
Creator of the New Travel & Design Series, 'OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES.'
Travel writer & host, cultural explorer, and architecture & interiors freak.
Meet ash >
I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈
I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈ I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GREAT ✈
The Newsletter
Every week, we're exploring global culture through the lens of the home. From floorplans to fixtures, we examine how houses are built, designed, and decorated around the world (with a side of sass, of course!)
The Podcast
The only podcast where we pass on the pyramids and poke around in the plumbing. I’m Ash, and I'm, exploring the strange, smart, and wonderful ways houses are built, designed, and decorated around the world.
The Books
A new series of OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES books designed to help you try on a new life in different places around the world—by getting to "go behind closed doors" inside local homes to discover what it's really like to live there.
Bring it all on. This is going to be awesome!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORRRRRRTTTTTTTT, SHINY GIRL!!!!!!! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟It’s time to have some fun!!!!
Going on dates and eating shit I’d never eaten and faking it till I (hopefully) made it is FUCKING RELATABLE. 😭😂 God. The shame of not living in the status you think is worthy of being worthy is quite something.
I WANNA SEE YOU WRITE A POST ABOUT IT IN SHAME SANDWICHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Which is still the best name ever, btw. I almost just wrote “love your vibe” and then immediately felt like I was 102. BUT I DO.
I will NEVER pretend to like sushi with raw fish again. NEVER.EVER.
And I will NEVER eat another spicy tuna roll for the rest of my life. DOUBLE.NEVER.EVER.
First, “Now we ruin the linen” would be a killer band name. Second, my childhood was also limited by access. Wonder bread was not only a staple, but the polka dot bags made needed boot liners during the winter months. As I grew into adulthood, I stumbled around making wince-worthy social mistakes. But were they? Who gets to decide, ultimately? Me. Bring on the ketchup.
Okay, wow, you JUST unlocked a childhood memory I had completely, completely forgotten all about since I was a kid: lining your boots! I sooooo forgot about that! We used to use the plastic bags from the grocery store. I’m guessing this was bc we all had cheap fabric boots from Ames. Wow. Love your Wonderbread idea! How funny. (And someone should do “And Now We Ruin the Linen.” 🤣🤣🤣)
So relatable being in the big city pretending you know what you’re doing in your early 20s! My Faux Pas was “Jojoba” which I pronounced with the “J” sound when the guy I was dating handed me a bottle of the oil. He corrected me pronouncing it “Hohoba” and saying “God, You should know that since you come from New Mexico!” But we didn’t use fancy sheek herbal oils. Where I came from it was baby oil or vasaline if you wanted to moisten your skin.
OH MY GOD I HAVE NEVER PUT THAT TOGETHER!!!! And I lived in South and Central America for over a decade!!! 🙈🙈🙈 I used to love writing “jajaja” for “hahaha,” and yet??? Never once considered this! Wow!!
Also can relate to Vaseline! And my mom telling me to shave my legs with water hahahahahaha
Welcome back Ash, missed you much. Totally worth it because you had me crying laughing with your nostrils being power-washed by Satan’s Altoid. 😂 😂 😂
This essay reminds me of how I met my best-friend-for-life (who just came to visit me over Thanksgiving) when in 1986 she asked me if I liked guacamole while we were standing in a cafeteria line on our lunch break. I had to say I don’t know, “I’ve never had it.”
Elle!!!!!!!!!!! Hello, hello, hellllo!!! Yes yes yes, back from my extended holiday break (sanity break slash gallbladder break) which I’ve decided I’m taking every year because WHY ARE THEY ALWAYS SO AWFUL AND RUSHED AND STRESSFUL?!? We need to lifestyle design our way out of that whole thing. 🤣
The guacamole. That’s a good one to add! Jeez, trying to remember my first time, because I know it HAD to be once I went to Costa Rica after college. I doubt I would have had it before then! Unless maybe nachos?! Were nachos a thing we even ate back then?! I feel like they weren’t! Just like kale. That slick bastard.
I love everything you write, Ash. This post particularly resonated as I see so much of myself in it. I’m a child of the 80’s – first in a tiny market town in England, to a small town in NJ with the rich kids laughing at me, to an early adulthood in the big city.
I am wondering now though, how access to the internet has changed this for the kids growing up today? It was your exposure line that got me (so freakin’ true for me) – if 90% is exposure, then what is it kids growing up today are missing exposure to, given that they have global access of the lives of others?
What a SUPER INTERESTING question, Lisa!!!!!!! Wow. This would be worth a study for sure: is seeing the same as exposure? And, to what degree?
Part of me thinks yes, had I seen people eating hummus on TikTok so super naturally, I wouldn’t have bat an eyelash. But, I might not have had access to it, still, so the “first time” experience must still be worth something. I wonder if it’s heightened, even, because of the anticipation. And the ego part that recognizes this is you MOVING UP in the world and being like, “yeah, I’m a baller.” Rather than, “oh fuck, I’m an idiot!!!!!”
Yep, which makes me think is it expectations or permission. I would never have gone to a fancy restaurant when I was younger, not because I didn’t want to or even because of money, but because I didn’t have a reference for it (I hadn’t seen it – and the unknown is so scary). I wasn’t brave enough to enter a world I didn’t think I belonged in.
My daughter lives so differently. She doesn’t worry, or stress, or try and fake the person thinks she should be to do the thing, she just goes and does the thing. I think that’s partly because online exposure to how other people live collapses the fear of getting it “wrong.” It’s not just exposure, it’s permission.
But I also wonder what gets lost. We had friction, waiting, buildup. The first time meant something because it took something. Now the world is more accessible, but the baseline expectation is higher too. Maybe the tradeoff is less fear, but more pressure to keep up with the life you’ve seen. And maybe less enjoyment from what they consider a baseline, but is actually way more than we ever dreamed at that stage in our lives.
“From what they consider a baseline.” No truer words. Though, here’s something interesting: I’m thinking about this in the context I’m at right now, in rural America, with rural American families, who have rural American teenagers, who are all on TikTok, too—but who, for the most part, are still not traveling, or visiting fancy restaurants, or holding themselves to a different standard, despite seeing it. Obviously a significant part of this is access to money, but I’d even posit that there’s a hefty amount of “I don’t belong in that world-ness” that is operating in the background, still, like you mentioned.
I have thought numerous times about ways to get young people here engaged in travel through a non-profit route, but have also thought about how, if the interest isn’t there, then it’s moot. How do you get the interest there? I would have thought that seeing = possibilities, but I sometimes wonder if it’s seeing = possibilities for other people.
THAT SAID, I did have a discussion with a young man of the fine age of 10 the other day, and he told me that he is either going to leave here and live in Montana, or Scotland, someday—VERY, VERY SURE OF THIS. And, he must be seeing these things on TV/computers to even know about them, as his parents have never traveled. But I wonder….is it because he’s young enough to believe that it’s possible for him still? Or will he grow up and become “indoctrinated” in a way of life & culture that largely believes that everyone else is an outsider?
OKAY, THAT WAS WAY TOO LONG. Just thinking out loud!!!!
Okay, so you just put me in my place for sure, because (unlike me) my daughter had an upbringing filled with travel and experience, and has probably unconsciously absorbed the “I belong” message regardless of how we tried to temper her privilege. So yes, I was thinking about young people within a very specific context.
But you also make another good point. I, too, believe in the power of travel. I had a plan in place to start a non-profit bringing young, under-privileged women from my home in Dundee, Scotland (where I live half-time) to “creativity retreats” in Tuscany or Umbria. But while sharing the plan with a friend experienced in the social services, she let me know that women just wouldn’t be interested. A “creativity retreat” would be a waste of time and who wants to go to Europe when they need to work. So yeah… seeing = possibilities for other people. Fancy people. Not me.
So I guess an interesting question is, why does exposure move some people to strive, and yet doesn’t change anything for others? And is there an difference between the exposure you name in your post and the “seeing” on social media?
I hope your young man comes to Scotland and he doesn’t get indoctrinated.
I once picked up a blob of wasabi thinking it was avocado and popped it confidently into my mouth…. Cue eyes watering while I tried to style it out in front of a bunch of fellow coaches I’d only just met!
You’re one of the best comedic writers out there, Ash. And how many times do you change the name of your publication?! lol, I was like *what is this??*
Man this brought back memories from high school. I remember being on prom date to a very fancy restaurant I had never been in. Never had shrimp, I was a teenager. Date was several years older than me and long since out of high school so we’ll say he was definitely more food educated than me. They brought out this amazing bowl of shrimp and while he was in the restroom (thank the gods), I had grabbed a piece of cocktail shrimp and took a bite and thought OMG this is awful crunchy…..I suffered thru it, and then he came back and started peeling the shrimp…Thankfully he completely missed my mortification of my error.
OMG this is 💯 something I would have done!!! In fact I do remember trying king crab once and found them awfully hard to eat. It wasn’t until after someone told me they failed to give me the crab cracker thing. 🤣🤣🤣 LOL
I ate tamales at a cookout and tried to bite through the corn husk… I did this LAST SUMMER.
I also went to a seafood restaurant before prom and ordered chicken tenders because I had no idea what seafood I might like haha.
Oh, to be a sheltered teen in a small town. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN WITH THE TAMALES!!! 🫔 It’s a Christmas tradition in Costa Rica, so when I was there, they were everywhere, but weirdly I never loved them! Even with the husk off 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Tamales are DELICIOUS. Corn husks are… not so edible after all haha.
LOL I remember the first time I ate King Crab. I was like WTF how do you get the meat out. They gave me the tool and I proceeded to throw crab meat at everyone at the table till they took it away from me and did it for me. I now forever refuse to do it myself unless they want food wars at the table 🙂
I’m pretty sure I will join you in that club!!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣
LOL we’ll be in good company!!
Top 5 Worst Things I ENJOYED Putting Ketchup On:
5. Chicken Nuggets
4. Steak
3. Scrambled Eggs
2. Hot Dog Buns (sans hot dogs)
1. BBQ Potato Chips (preferred Martin’s because they were rippled)
I had to save the worst for last as a BONUS… but my parents would feed me ketchup packets at restaurants so I would sit quietly until the real food arrived.
I wrote you a parody song. I hope you know the OG song because it was most definitely my ringtone in 2006-2007.
Ayo
You don’t have to love me
You don’t even have to like me
But you will question me
You know why? ’Cause I’m CLASSY
I’m classy
I’m the lil girl who ate ketchup off the plate
Skipped the dog and just ate the bun
That’s right, I brought all the boys to the yard
And that’s right, I’m eating ketchup for fun
I’m classy
💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯 I know it!!!!!!!!! Except I was probably still listening to “Milkshake!!!!!!” Baaaahahahahahahahahahahahhahahha this is amazing. You nailed it!!!!!!!!
But also let’s talk about this hot dog and ketchup phenom because I definitely used to spread yellow mustard on a piece of bread and call it good so now I’m starting to think we were meant to be friends 🤣
P.S. POTATO CHIPS DIPPED IN KETCHUP IS NEXT LEVELLLLLLLLL. Though you know what Costa Ricans do?! Dip in mayonnaise!