Magazines Make Me Feel Bad

Have you ever had a friend who was so fantastically good at stuff that every time you visited you'd leave feeling like maybe you were lacking in some undefinable way? Like, why can't I decorate in a quirky manner and whip up a gourmet meal from nothing? Why are we not having dinner around the the dining room table while discussing world topics? Why don't we even have dining room chairs?

This kind of thing used to really bug the shit out of me because I felt like maybe I missed a key lesson in How To Be a Cool Grownup. I mostly got over it, but I still get pangs of house anxiety when I stumble across stuff like this because just when I've decided that the people in Domino Magazine are all models and their quirky apartments are actually sets, I'm proven wrong. PEOPLE REALLY DO LIVE LIKE THIS. It's daunting. Though in abchao's case, I think she did it the real way (vintage/thrift stores, a good eye) , rather than the rich people way (expensive new stuff that looks like it came from vintage/thrift stores and a good decorator) which makes it that much more impressive, thus making me feel that much lamer.

I page through Domino and wonder, where are the cat vomit stains? Where is their junk mail pile? Do they have a Pod out back full of all the junk they don't know what to do with? Because I have a lot of junk I don't know what to do with. Also, I have no time to decided what to do about the junk I don't know what to do with. How did I get all this stuff? Why do I save so much shit? Why is my husband incapable of throwing away the box for anything? I read Domino and I want to cry, so I let my subscription go. Then someone gave me a big stack of them and it started all over again.

Oh, and don't EVEN get me started on Dwell. Dwell has got to be the most incredibly pretentious magazine ever in the whole magazine world. Dwell is Domino with an eco-attitude. Dwell is all about smug rich people who seem to enjoy how clever they are to manage to live in 500 square feet of concrete space in some urban ex-meatpacking plant or something. All the furniture is made from bamboo and cardboard! They have skylights instead of electricity! Their $10,000 dishwasher is powered by pet hamsters! It's all so smug that I want to throw it in the trash, NOT IN THE RECYCLE BIN.

I think the saddest thing I ever saw in Dwell was a playground designed by an architect who decided that regular playground equipment was far too garish. The entire thing consisted of some sad wooden ramp...thing in a park. Oh, damn, people.

Anyway, I need to clear out a WHOLE BUNCH of crap and get back to chipping paint off the wall in my bathroom and maybe I'll feel better or something. I also need to get rid of the world's biggest space-sucking piano. Want it? Free piano anyone? Please take it away? Please.

Coming up tomorrow: Craft show report! Mailroom guy predicts my doom! Crazy guy in the next booth! Most awkward craft show moment ever!