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Archive | couches

It's come to this


Fabric swatches on my couch.


More fabric swatches.


More.

There aren’t different swatches in each photo. Just a different configuration.

In other news, today I went to a press luncheon presentation for Chile. This is one of the perks of not working in an office—getting to go to things like this. See, I used to get invited to stuff like this all the time but had to say no because if I vacated my desk for three hours I might never come back. Back in those days I was young and naive. I didn’t know what I know today, which is that even though you might think Chilean food is spicy, it’s not. That’s one of the big misconceptions about this diverse and friendly country with many organic ingredients. “Flavored well, not spicy,” said a bald man wearing a pink tie. Also, there is something called Merken and NO ONE made any merkin jokes. That’s how civilized this crowd was.

Um, what else? Please forgive me, I’m distracted by Jeff Conaway and that piece of work Vicki Whatshername. Oh wait, I’m wrong! He’s not bitching at Vicki! He was telling the new tech Luisha that he doesn’t like her. I should never multitask like this.

So I jotted down a few choice sentences I heard today. These are they:

“I just want to give a shout out to the avocado oil.”

“Basil? Sauvignon? Love it!”

“Sole Valhalla”

“It’s not a wine that shouts at you with exclamation points.”

My friend Mike took some photos which he told me he’s heard are referred to, in the porn business, as food porn. Or maybe it was in the food writing world.

I’m joking as I’m actually familiar with this atrocious term and long ago decided that until a naked person appears in the photos I don’t think we should be calling it porn. Have people no respect for porn?

Um. Oh, Mike’s photos:



Oh, also, also! I think I’ll get to drive a MINI E which is the new electric MINI. I’m totally going to try to plug my hairdryer into it.

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Wear yourself out by listening to me go on and on about furniture


Earlier today I had a whole temper tantrum inside my own head and decided that when I got home I would write a blog post entitled “I don’t know how I feel about my couch. P.S. I’m neurotic and going to die alone.”

Then I found out that title had already been taken so I had to go with the one above.

See, I’ve been going back and forth on this couch. Not literally. On the upside, it’s comfortable. On the downside, sometimes I look at it and think “it looks like barf.”

But considering how goddamn long I took to decide and how annoying I was about it shouldn’t I just love it? Love it to pieces?

Because I don’t. But I think I like it. Maybe? I don’t know. I like it better now that I bought throw pillows for it (I haven’t decided which ones I like, hence the three different pillows.) Earlier tonight I decided I’d go with a silver, gold and white theme which is neato and, um, yeah. Neato’s all I got on that one. Fancy? Neato and fancy? I could do neato and fancy. And secretly Christmasy.

But then sometimes I look at the couch and think “it looks like a giant gum eraser.” I also think it looks like liver and I also think it looks like steak that’s been chewed up and spit out. Also: gristle.

But then I see it in photos and I think maybe it’s ok.

See, complicating matters is the fact that the delivery men nicked it in a couple spots so C&B offered to replace it. I explained that it was kind of difficult to get it into the space so they’re sending someone out to look at it here to see if he can patch it up in situ. What does in situ mean? Hold please.

God I’m smart.

Um, yeah, so anyway, if I act fast I could get this big gray menace out of my apartment and my life forever and then I could invite something else into my living room that I will go nuts about. Seriously, I’m sick and tired of myself.

But it’s not like I never like anything ever. When I look at my bed, my white duvet covered bed, I feel calm and good. I don’t have this crazy ping ponging meat-comparison making reaction happening.

Yet I’m not at peace with the decision to just return the fucker either. That makes me anxious too.

Let’s talk about my last apartment, shall we? I moved into it under duress. I wanted to stay in the apartment I was in before that, my first real apartment in New York, but it’s a long story and that wasn’t feasible so there my sister and I were, needing to find an apartment or break up and she had a friend who was vacating this great apartment in the village and we went and looked at it and because I couldn’t find anything else I said yeah, that’s fine. But then before we pulled the trigger I began doubting the decision and was freaking out and begged a friend from work who was later my boyfriend, unless he was already my boyfriend at the time, to go look at the place with me. We did and he reassured me that it was a great place and I would be happy there.

Sadly it was a terrible place and I was miserable there.

Or rather, it was a pretty decent place but I wasn’t happy there anyway. I never liked that apartment or that neighborhood. Also, there were mice. Oh my God, my couch looks like a big sheet of mice.

So I was thinking about all this this morning and thinking that if I’m having doubts about the couch, instead of letting myself be talked into it, I should just honor those doubts and not keep the damn thing and just wait until I find one I really feel good about.

But then sometimes I look at it and I like it.

And it’s comfortable. It’s really comfortable.

So then why not just get it in a different color?

Because that will take 12 weeks. And plus I’m trying to avoid having people remove it and bring in another one but I’m not sure why I’m trying so hard to avoid that. I mean, just because my idea of hell is moving furniture doesn’t mean that someone whose job it is to move furniture feels the same way.

But still, I just feel like I’m doing it. That thing I do. I don’t know what that thing I do is which makes it hard to know whether I’m really doing it, but I suspect I am. I mean, this feels very me in the extreme. I hate extreme me.

I’m also trying to see if it’s possible to get slipcovers for this couch. I mean, I know you can order them from C&B for about a thousand dollars but for that much, I may as well just get a different couch.

Still reading? I’m sorry to put you through this. On the upside… um…. well okay technically there is no upside. Oh wait, I know! Today I saw a woman pushing two black poodles in a stroller!

Also, I’m aware there’s a world that exists outside me and this couch. I find that annoying, too.


And then I see this photo and I like it again.


I also like ducklings.


Here I am not thinking about couches.

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My couch is eleven hours old

And already I’ve fallen asleep on it and nearly lost the remote control in its butt, or whatever the appropriate furniture term for seam between the cushions is.

Also, I know the couch is much older than eleven hours but I choose to ignore the life it led before we crossed paths.

Also, unrelated, I don’t like video chatting. I just don’t. No thank you, gmail.

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Furniture Design Styles ™

I’ve been thinking a lot about Rachel Ashwell lately. She’s the founder of a design style called Shabby Chic and she’s made a fortune stuffing this frilly, distressed white-on-white style down the public’s throat. I’m a member of that public, by the way. Today I sat in a shabby chic chair in the Shabby Chic store in Soho and had to agree with the sales girls: “It’s like being hugged! It’s like a big down hug! It’s like a two thousand dollar hug!” What does a two thousand dollar hug feel like, you may be wondering? Like being embraced by a big marshmallow peep cloud, but not sticky, just soothing and warm and comforting. If my sister were worth two thousand dollars I would sell her and buy that chair, no offense Laura.

So then I was thinking that I should create my own design style and trademark it and write a bunch of books and sell DVDs and give ol’ fussy Ashwell a run for her money. Here are some movements I’m thinking of trademarking:

Shabby Crappy
Crappy Chic
Crab Chic
Mid-Century Morbid
Yellow
Oodles of Ribbons
Honk If You Love Wood Furniture
Bright Lights; Big Chaise Lounge
Pretentious
Squishy Washy
Fuck This Chair Is Hard

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Judge me not

Readers, I’m about to do something rash. I’m going to a Laz-Y-Boy Furniture Gallery. In the same way that a soon-to-be married person might need one more night at a strip club, I need to see what’s out there one last time before I settle on the Crate and Barrel couch. See, even my language is troubling. Settle? Am I settling on the couch? Shouldn’t I wait to find the couch that’s going to sweep me off my feet and make me feel alive and inspire me to greatness? Is that couch even out there?

That’s why I need to sow my upholstery oats, even if my mind is already 99 percent made up.

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This again

I see the above photo and I’m back to wanting a white couch. (photo found here http://designholeonline.com)

I think I’m just going to have to replace my bed with a couch so I can have two couches in my apartment, one grey and one white, and I’ll sleep in the pantry with my broken hair dryer.

I guess I don’t really have a pantry come to think of it. Crap, I should probably get one of those too.

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Need a dose of cuteness?

I think you do. These are the birthday cards my mom received from her favorite daughter and my sister.


In other news I’m ass high in the midst of couch shopping. Well, let me back up. So last night I’m reading my vampire book and I get an email from one Bill Schulz cajoling me into coming into the Activity Pit chatroom and I did and it was fun but it was pointed out to me that I haven’t been blogging as much lately and it must be because I’m busy. Yeah, busy sitting on couches. Imagine couches are braille and my butt is blind.

But see, there is something frivolous about the couch decision and so perhaps I haven’t wanted to admit how much of my energy and time is being taken up by it because I like to think I’m a person of substance. In this case, polyester foam with down ticking.

So I’ve narrowed it down to two models, and I will post those pictures, but first I want to say that now that I’m all couch aware–to the point that I know that Room & Board’s Kendall is basically Crate & Barrel’s Huntley Woods with different pillows, which is to say I can see the frame beneath the fluff, I’m again having a thought that I’ve had periodically over the years which is that the human face comes in a limited number of models and you just see the same face over and over again on different people with slight variation. Do you know what I mean? My thoughts are very mushy and marshmallowy and kind of dumb right now. It’s because I have two whole couches in there and the left arm facing sectional.


Do I want this couch?


Or this one?

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