Book-filled rooms...

When I was 17 and madly in love, I received a letter from my first sweetheart (we weren’t yet lovers), telling me that all he wanted from life was a book filled room and a lover to share things with, “when she is needed”. Even at 17, even madly in love, it didn’t escape my notice that the concept would have been better had he ended his sentence at “with”, and I immediately wrote him back and told him so. It’s probably a good thing that we didn’t marry each other...

Still, after all these years, I remember, and am fond of, his concept. A book filled room and a lover to share things with...well, lacking the lover, I’ll take the book filled room. I’ve been thinking of this a lot lately, mostly from my own book filled rooms, because it's time to think about selling my house. I love my house, with it's book filled rooms, but...it’s too big, and too expensive to keep. When I was younger and heard people say their houses were too expensive to live in, I didn’t know what they meant. Ha! I’ve learned.

I don’t need to be heating and cooling over 3000 square feet of living space when it’s just me and the cats who live here. I’m ready to downsize, but...to what? I’ve been looking at houses, condos, and townhouses on the internet for the past year, and I’ve yet to see much of anything that I like. I don’t welcome the thought of remodeling yet another place, and yet I’m not so put off by the idea that I won’t consider it. I just want good bones, but from what I’ve seen, they’re as hard as ever to find. Many of the smaller houses I’ve looked at are described as “Great first house” or “Good starter house”. These phrases are often used to describe 1200 to 1500 square foot houses with 3 or 4 tiny bedrooms and 2 or 3 baths. Those may be great for young marrieds, but I don’t know anyone my age who’s looking for a house like that. I’d like that amount of square footage with just a few large, open rooms, preferably all on one floor, big enough to hold my furniture and still have room to walk around in. The baby boomers, of which I’m one, still make up a sizeable portion of the population, and probably a majority of us are in the process of downsizing, so we must be a fairly substantial market. Maybe it’s time to come up with a new concept: small, stylish houses for empty nesters who are downsizing. I’d welcome an ad that said, “Great LAST house”, especially if it was for a place with a few open rooms with high ceilings, two baths, and infinite walls of bookshelves...

Sunday afternoon wiring project...

Aaaarrggghhh, I LOATHE electrical work, and yet I have to admit, I’m very glad that I’m capable of doing the simple stuff myself. Sunday afternoon, as part of my Master Bath Remodeling Project, I decided to replace two GFCI’s (ground fault circuit interrupters, for those of you who aren’t into home repairs). A GFCI prevents severe or fatal shocks by monitoring the electrical current and tripping the circuit if it senses an imbalance, thereby interrupting the flow of electricity through a human to the ground, or through an animal to the ground, for that matter. PETA alert: Early GFCI's were tested on unfortunate pigs in swimming pools, because their skin is similar to ours...however, although they may have been tested on pigs, in my house, the GFCI's are limited to preventing severe shocks in humans...















I’ve installed GFCI’s before, and it should have taken me about 20 minutes to replace two of them.











It took longer, for reasons I won’t go into here, but...eventually...voila! The little green light means all is well.



















And afterward, thinking of the money I saved doing it myself, I went for a much-needed manicure...

Why Oh Why Oh Why, Indeed...

I’m not a fan of Oprah, but tonight, channel surfing, I ended up watching “An all-new Oprah Show exclusive! The miracle in Missouri!”, her pre-taped interview with Craig and Pam Akers and their son, Shawn Hornbeck, the 15-year-old Missouri boy who was found last week after having disappeared more than four years ago, and with Doris and Don Ownby, parents of Ben Ownby, the 13-year-old Missouri boy who was found with Shawn.

Maybe it’s because a few short years ago, my own twin sons were skinny, shy, 15-year-olds, or maybe it’s because I worked in child psychiatry for 5 years, and I’ve done way too many interviews of parents and kids myself, or maybe it’s because Oprah is not my "leading source for information about love, life, self, relationships, food, home, spirit and health", the phrase Google pulls up to link to her website if you type in “Oprah” and then click “Search”...and while we’re at it, not only is Oprah not my leading source for information about any of those topics, and perhaps in this, as in so many other things, I’m hopelessly out of whack, but Oprah’s not a source for me on any of those topics, or on anything at all. Simone de Beauvoir might be a source for me, and the internet in general, but Oprah? Not by a long shot.

Anyway, I don’t know if it’s because of any of those things, but the interview was painful to watch. I don’t know why the Akers agreed to do it. Maybe they thought it was their best option, or maybe Andy Warhol had it right, and we all want our 15 minutes of fame, but to allow Shawn to be interviewed on television...what were they thinking when they agreed to that? Ben Ownby’s parents were interviewed too, but they did not allow Ben to be interviewed, and I think they made a wise decision.

I found myself cringing when Oprah asked, for herself and her millions of viewers, (“who want to know”), “Do you think he was sexually abused?” and the Akers admitted that yes, they believe he was. But if that question made me cringe, Oprah’s overall ham-handed interviewing techniques, including her insistence on repeatedly asking why - why didn’t Shawn escape? call his parents? ask for help? left me alternating between wanting to smack her and wondering if she has any ability to empathize at all.

A couple of light years ago, when I was learning interview techniques, I was told to ask Who, What, When and How, but to avoid asking Why. If I remember correctly, the reasoning was that “What” questions (e.g., “What happened?”) elicit facts and information; “How” questions (“How did you get to the park?”) are associated with sequence and processing; “When and Where” questions elicit information regarding time and place; and “Who” questions elicit information regarding people; but “Why” questions are generally perceived as accusatory, and elicit reasons and intellectualizing, e.g., all those experts expounding “Well, maybe he didn’t call anyone because he was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome...”

Would someone please tell Oprah?

I Vant to be Alone...

On the sidewalk the people are hustling and bustling,
They ain't got no time so they think on the thing
That will fill in the space in between birth and death
Who're they kidding ?
lyrics from The Observation, by Donovan


I’ve been thinking about Greta Garbo these days, and the famous quote attributed to her: "I vant to be alone." Actually, that’s apparently a misquote. She is reported to have told friends, "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is a world of difference."

There is, indeed, a world of difference, and I’m not sure which I want: to be alone or to be left alone, but both sound delicious to me, a lot of the time, these days. I have a small but solid network of good friends and family whose company I enjoy and with whom I'm in regular contact, but I'm a woman who has always enjoyed and required a certain amount of solitude, and apparently, I'm not alone (sorry, couldn't resist) in that requirement.


And speaking of Being Alone...this device is from the Hammacher-Schlemmer catalog, and when I first saw it, I thought it was a device to...ahem...well, to enhance being alone, so I thought it was a...um....wellllllll...a high tech...uh...nevermind.

Suffice it to say, I had no idea of the size of the thing, or the function, for that matter. What do YOU think it is?

Ha! You can read all about it, here.

And as if that weren't enough...well, maybe Timothy Leary had it right after all, with his Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out philosophy...or maybe all I need is a metro nap...

bathroom redux...

Here's what it looked like after I stripped the wallpaper but before I did anything else, in the master bathroom of my house...pretty grim.

Please note the hideous yellow faux marble, in the tub and tub surround. I'm not about to change it, because at some point soon I'm going to sell this house, but that said, I've had to work with/around that color/material. Well, I always enjoy a challenge...



























Details, details...I love these bud vases that Pottery Barn was dumping, and I couldn't resist putting one on each side of the big window...

That's it for now. Not bad, for having done all this in one day, and on New Year's Day at that. What an exciting life I lead, eh? For what it's worth, I had to paint a lot of it with my left hand, but Lily, note, no purple anywhere! The sad thing is, this is only part of the master bath...so part remains to be completed...and that part is bigger...

to be continued...(eventually)