Greedy Scheming

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately instead of writing my own. Mostly design and fashion blogs, like academichic and designsponge. Throw in a little House Beautiful and some Etsy browsing. The result is a manic desire to remake my home with quirky things I can’t afford, and to cut up half my wardrobe and re-sew it. All at the same time. Needless to say, my mind hasn’t been on my work too much lately.

Going to the Celadon Outlet at the old Navy Yard with my friend, Pretty Smile, did NOT help my greed and scheming. The outlet is for scratch and dent furniture and overstocks, and I saw at least a dozen things I would love to decorate a hypothetical hipster bungalow with an outdoor kitchen and mossy bricks. I do not own a hipster bungalow with an outdoor kitchen. Any mossy bricks I possess are by sheer
accident, and I live in fear that someone, probably me, will slip on them the next time it sleets, which is a pretty rare occasion in Charleston, SC. Yes, I know, I’m talented that way. Thank you, Mother, for passing down your inimitable physical grace. *Ahem.* Moving on…

My house is a 1965…ranch? It was a long, narrow brick house, until somebody added a mother in law suite onto the right side of it. In the 2000s, it was updated by a flipper, who had the wisdom to leave the original six inch baseboards and crown moldings, but who did a lousy job installing his own carpet and linoleum. He also did not replace the original, cracked windows or improve the insulation. This condition led to the purchase of some very expensive flannel sheets from Dillard’s that are cloud-soft, blissfully warm, and also pill like no other. *grumblesnort!*

When we moved in, we had only bought a few things as we needed them. Most of the rest of our furniture was hand-me-down from Will’s aunt or parents. From Will’s aunt, we received a heavy cherry veneer bedroom set. The worn out bed slats eventually dumped us on the floor at 3 am, and I didn’t like the cockatoo-chewed, neo-Victorian headboard well enough to keep it, so we dragged it to the curb
before we left Miami. However, we kept the nightstand, and pair of approximately 300-lb dressers. I’m exaggerating the weight, but wow, they’re heavy. Solid wood is usually worth hanging onto even if it’s not my style, says I.

We replaced the matching bed with a modern sleigh bed from Overstock.com. It wasn’t long before that dumped us on the floor as well. All it took was my 200-ish pound husband sitting down hard on his side of the bed, and that was the end of that slat. Finally gave up and bought a metal bed frame to attach the headboard to. Unfortunately, the footboard took a beating when the slat cracked, so I’m going to try to glue it back together with some heavy duty wood glue. If that doesn’t work, well, the bed looks just fine with no footboard, and we both like to hang our toes over the end. Tall peoples’ prerogative. Alas, rubberwood is a huge rip-off.

Nature apparently abhors a vacuum-why is that, anyway? Is Nature really a giant cosmic shelter mutt? I ventured that question to a dog fancier at work, and he pointed out that God spelled backward IS doG. I’m not prepared to go that far, theologically. John Calvin and my minister father might both have issues with that, and I don’t want to end up like my college roommate who was a Bible major. She had recurring nightmares of John Calvin and the Greek verb luw chasing her. Hi, Annie! How ya sleeping lately?

Anyway, MY nature abhors an empty corner I could be decorating. Once we fix the broken footboard, that will free up the floor space of the corner to the right of the nightstand on my side of the bed. Got that? The wall to the right of the nightstand is occupied by a Chinese ink painting scroll that was a wedding gift. I had been toying with the idea of getting a cushy chair, footstool, and tiny bookcase to put in that corner. Because I totally don’t read on the couch all the time. My books are starting to take over, and I want to move the more embarrassing titles off the top of the piano. No, I don’t read romance novels. Haven’t read one since college, when it was beyond hilarious in my clique of virginal, horny girls, to give romance novels as birthday presents and read the steamy parts aloud in a deadpan voice. I just have a suspicion that having more than a certain number of Mercedes Lackey novels will make people think I’m frivolous. The reality is that nobody notices, and I’m secretly afraid that being female inherently makes me frivolous, but that’s between me, God, and my imaginary counselor.

So I need to get the fairy tales off the piano and move to the forefront titles like “Druids,” The English Country Gentleman and the Age of Chivalry”, “Selected Works of Chretien des Troyes,” and “The Complete Annotated Works of Shakespeare,” All of which I have read, thank you very much. And I think Titus Andronicus is a sad example of what artists will do for money. Much Ado about Nothing is still my
favorite, so maybe I am lowbrow. I never got into Sudoku, either. I will now embrace my plebeian status. Will it hug me back?

The problems with that fantasy of a bedroom reading nook are that 1. It’ll clutter the room with too much furniture. 2. I’ll never use it. 3. It’ll just end up covered in clothes that aren’t quite dirty and need one more wearing before washing, thereby increasing clutter even more, and 4. If I can ever manage to get knocked up, I’ll need that corner for a crib while Beers Jr. is a newborn. *Encouraging news on the
fertility front: the doctor said that since I’d been on the pill so long after marriage, I am really only one year out from detoxing, not two. Doesn’t change the amount of time that’s passed, but it makes me feel better. Hopefully my thyroid problems will fall in line soon.*

After all that digression, I know what the real problem is. I either have too many books or too few bookcases. And I don’t like one of the bookcases. We got it free, and it’s just a plain, wood-grained particle board DIY-er. It’s not particularly sturdy and it’s certainly not attractive. I have shoved it up in the corner behind the French doors in my living room where I don’t have to look at it.

Here’s where the temptation comes in. I saw two stunning bookcases at Celadon. They’re distressed cream, made out of some plasticky stuff, but they look like antique wrought iron garden gates. My pragmatic hindbrain is reminding me that not only are they not sturdy, which I profess to require, they are also something like $400. Each. That’s the sale price. Whiiiiiiine. It’s like the Anthropologie catalog. I don’t even like half their stuff, and it’s all stratospherically expensive, and who can afford that anyway, but I STILL WANT TO BE THAT GIRL! I want to be that girl who has fragile, expensive bookcases that look like antique garden gates. With exotic knick-knacks and rare plants, and only about a dozen actual books on them. Sadly, the last time I saw great design intersect practical living was in the Not So Big House books by architect Sarah Susanka. I can’t afford those bookcases, and I sure can’t afford to hire an architect. I’m also pretty sure THAT GIRL is a hypochondriac control freak who hasn’t spoken to her mother in six months. She also has a friend with benefits named Stefan. I don’t like her.

What is a lot more manageable is getting a large bookcase from Good Wood or craigslist and painting it to my specs, maybe painting the back and shelves a fun color. Maybe wallpapering them. I could do that. It wouldn’t break the bank. And it would fit in better with my non-hipster, non-bungalow décor. It is also true that upgrading bookcases is hardly an emergency on the priority list. In fact, replacing and adding kitchen lighting would be a much better return on investment, since my huge kitchen is sun-drenched during the day, and grim and dim at night.

I can also go though my books. Yes, I’m feeling faint at the idea, but I’m hanging in there. I’m wondering if, at almost five years out of college, I need to keep every single book I referenced in my undergrad thesis? Some of them are unbelievably boring, and hardcovers take up a lot of space. Probably time to revisit those. But will I still be respected for my mental acuity if I get rid of half my research books on druids and medieval poetry and keep the Mercedes Lackey? Eek!

Another thing I can do to satisfy my design craving is go back to the Celadon outlet and NOT buy the bookcases. When I went, I saw a pale chair with a hybrid Gothic/Moorish arch on the back. It was under $100. The exact price escapes me, but I think it was $75, which isn’t at all bad for a dining chair. If they have two of those, I can buy them to expand our dining room seating from four to six. We frequently host hours-long card games, so having more chairs would be a boon. We usually just drag in the piano bench, and I get nervous every time some hulking guy plumps down on it. Furthermore, if my mother in law lets me have her white Danish-style chairs when I get their big black table after they move, the two Gothic chairs would make excellent captain’s chairs at the head and foot of the table. If she doesn’t, the two Gothic chairs would still make excellent captain’s chairs; I’ll just be pitching a raving, lunatic fit while I shop for four more chairs. I should probably sell advance tickets. That tantrum promises to be entertaining.

Naturally, I’ll go back to Celadon, cash in hand, and there won’t be two of the Gothic chair, and I’ll talk myself out of just buying one, or there will be two, but I won’t have any peace about buying them. “Peace” is always how my mom described having a mental or emotional check on doing something that’s probably a bad idea, or the timing is wrong. She ascribes that feeling to the Holy Spirit. I’ve felt that many times when I was all revved up to buy or do something and I just couldn’t and
couldn’t explain why. Sometimes it was an upset stomach providing the jerk on the reins. Sometimes it was certainly the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the sour stomach and the Holy Spirit feel pretty much the same. But I didn’t do or buy what it was I wanted to do or buy, and not doing it has always proven to be a good decision.

**Update** I did go back to Celadon, cash in hand. And there was only one of the Gothic chairs and I didn't buy it. Instead, I went to Next to New in Mt. Pleasant and bought a scrolly mahogany table that had been painted celery green. It wasn't a bargain. In fact, it was [Price Redacted], but I loved it, and I'm using it as a nightstand.

I won’t die if I don’t do any of the above. In fact, just writing it all down and puzzling it out takes a lot of the urgent sting out of it. I’m also pretty easily distracted by pretty things. In a day or two, I’ll have another “great” idea that will feel like I can’t breathe if I don’t do it RIGHT NOW. I’ll live through that
too. What’s more important than how trendy and tasteful our home is, is how our guests feel in it.

Nobody’s ever complained of feeling unwelcome, so I can quit obsessing any time now. Maybe I’ll quit obsessing tomorrow. After my next big idea.

Shall We Dance?

Dum da da, dum da da. One, two, three; one, two, three. I’ve been fascinated by dance ever since Mom took me to see some Flamenco dancers in Taiwan when I was four. Of course, I called them “Flamingo” dancers and after about half an hour, asked if all they did was stamp around on the stage. It’s a wonder Mom didn’t strangle me. It also didn’t help that Dad jokingly referred to dancers as “roach stompers” after that occasion. And then there was the waltz practice scene in Peter Pan with Mary Martin, though for some reason I found that embarrassing to watch. Can’t figure that out. Fast forward to about ten years old and I saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time. The famous ballroom scene was enrapturing. It still is.

So what is it about ballroom dance, particularly the western social and standard dances, that captures (women’s) imaginations? Part of it is probably a cultural memory of a time when dancing was a social grace, when women wore rustling gowns and men had to pretend they had manners in public. Social ballroom dance is also attractive because it has no height or weight requirements; only a reasonable level of coordination and an ear for rhythm. Anybody can learn the standard waltz or foxtrot without mangling it too badly.

Ballroom dance is also incredibly sensual, but the prescribed movements and distance from one’s partner keep it innocent. The restraint of the dance builds emotional passion, but keeps it in check. In contrast, grinding up against somebody leaves nothing to the imagination, but is far more awkward and tiresome than sexy. Social dance also brings a sense of community, as it is very easy to chat while performing a simple waltz or foxtrot. Ballroom isn’t self-conscious; everyone else on the floor is doing the same movements, unlike modern dancing where each person dances alone and spends the whole time wondering if (s)he looks like an idiot.

No doubt, some of the allure is the beautiful clothes. I watched some youtube videos last night. One was of the annual ball in Vienna. All of the women were wearing white ballgowns and elbow gloves. The men were in white tie. I love watched them whirl around the floor and change partners without missing a beat. In my own dance daydreams, I’m wearing a tea-length rose dupioni gown with cap sleeves, white gloves, and a spray of opals in my hair. It saddens me that only high-society and the military have any need to dress for formal occasions anymore. And with that thought comes the treasonable idea that a good deal of beauty in society was lost when women started wearing pants regularly. One would have to pry my jeans out of my cold, dead hands, of course, but there’s no denying skirts are more graceful. So is outward dress a symptom or a cause of the loss of general mannerliness in public life?

Music is the final piece of the puzzle. Waltz music, for example, can be poignant, inspiring, even gritty (Chad Kroeger’s Hero from the Spider-Man soundtrack). The music changes the whole tone of the dance from intense to romantic, to soothing, etc. The fact that the same dance steps can be performed with such a wide variety of emotions makes social dance enduring and consistently relevant to the human experience. Shall we dance?

She doesn't want much, just the world with a fence around it

I’m having one of those days where I’m afraid my head has been swapped with a less intelligent body part. I’m not quite bumping into things, but it sure was hard to leave the flannel sheets this morning. I’ve been creaking around like an Ent since then and I haven’t been useful at all. Did I mention I’m not a morning person? I made it to work late (for me, that is. My company doesn’t really care when you show up as long as you log your time.), since my hair wouldn’t cooperate and I had to hit level 300 in Fishdom before I left. Once I got here, I wandered to the break room to fill up my giant yellow cup and ran into my lead engineer. He was in a good mood. Maybe it was because he hadn’t had coffee yet, and therefore was too fuzzy to find anything to gripe about. Anyway, we started talking about how nice it would be to be rich and have a housekeeper to serve breakfast every morning. That started my mouth watering thinking about my ideal breakfast. It’s not too fancy-I’ve never gone for steak and eggs (Scratch that, I’ve never HAD steak and eggs)- but it would be labor consuming and regrettably, I’ve never eaten any of these things at the same time. Let’s see: Chai or coffee, cantaloupe, Cream of Wheat with maple syrup to stir in, and a big pile of scrambled eggs and bacon. I can see it now, laid out on fine china (Nana’s Lenox, naturally) on a sunny deck. Nobody pinch me. I really should do this once the weather is reliably in the 70-80 range this spring. I have the china and the wooden deck; just need the lazy Saturday to put the rest of it together. The problem is, I want to eat like this EVERY morning. And once I’d had breakfast, I’d start dreaming about lunch. A BLT (extra bacon) on a French baguette with mint sun tea and cheddar Sun Chips. Now we’re drooling! Late afternoon snack of gourmet Swiss cheese on wheat crackers with sugared frozen grapes. Dinner would be at 7 and would be…let’s see…rosemary or sage pork roast with mixed vegetables sautéed in a light balsamic vinaigrette and small helping of mushroom alfredo.
Having described the food, now I’ll describe the ideal day. Since this is a dream, let’s say I wake up at 8. I do some stretches, take a long shower, then make myself that breakfast and eat it slowly. After I wash Nana’s Lenox and stop feeling guilty about using it on a random Tuesday, I ride my vintage Schwinn (yellow, with a basket and bell) over to the grocery store and buy everything on the day’s menu. I prepare the pork and put it in the oven and freeze the grapes for later. Then I put on breezily quaint gardening clothes-probably a sleeveless smock or babydoll and capris, and a wide straw hat with long ribbons- and head out to terrorize the dandelions. No shoes, of course. I don’t dream about fire ants. I don’t get sunburned in my dreams either. My yard is a fantasy of Japanese cherry, ornamental pear and dogwood trees, hydrangea and azalea. There is an herb garden and a koi pond. A red Chinese moon door separates the kitchen garden from a Chinese garden that’s all cool bamboo and black and white pebbles. My BLT lunch gets eaten outside under a big tree. Back inside after lunch, I putter in my sunny workroom overlooking the garden. I sew or write while the light is good (And nap. There’s no accident there’s a couch in there.) Once the afternoon fades, I wander back outside to the big tree and swing a little while as the fireflies come out. The pork is nearly done and I can smell it from yards away through the open windows. Evenings are a little sharp even though the days are warm, so I kindle a fire with the twigs I picked up from the yard. Dinner time, then curling up on the couch to watch TV or read. Dessert is a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of shortbread cookies. Bed around midnight.
Of course, to make this romantic scenario remotely possible, I’d have to be wealthy and probably retired. But long, slow days filled with good food, moderate exercise, and plenty of creativity really appeal to me.