Mags is still here. Love her. She's cooking healthier which is good for the both of us and much to our glee, the food is actually tasty. I'll be having some steamed brown rice, green beans and baked turkey wings for lunch today. It's just so easy and familiar for us to co-exist I know I'm going to miss her all over again when(ever) she departs and heads back South.
Anyway, this past weekend she decided she no longer liked the feeble and short curtains I had strung up, so we set off to find new ones.
This is where we, and the most helpful JC Penney sales assistant, discovered that I have no idea what's going on in the home department. Everything was a curtain as far as I was concerned. Short, long, wide, skinny, I didn't know. I just walked around the department rubbing everything commentating on textures ("This is burlap, no? A shower curtain? Wait. Wrong area.") and colors ("Wow, a tofu colored window treatment. Well my couch is green so it could go...").
Windows wear scarves? I had no idea. I found a paisley scarf that I feel certain would've looked better on me than any window. I swaddled myself in it. Mags gave me that age-old look that said, "I'm not going to tell you again. Stop playing with that before you tear it down. I can't take you anywhere."
When I finally found some that I liked the associate asks, "We're out of the 84s, will 95s work?"
"I only need three."
"Right, but how long do the curtains need to be. We're out of the 84s but we have 95s."
"Oh, yeah. Well, 95s are fine," I say, still oblivious. "If they're too long, we'll just cut them off and make those little tie back thingies, you know, when you open the curtains."
My mom just stood there shaking her head.
"Well, these curtains would look great with a valance," suggests the up-selling sales lady.
"No thank you," said Mags, looking at her with eyes that were imploring her not to ask any more questions.
Too late. "What's a valance? Oh, that frou frou thing that goes at the top of the window? Yeah, I don't like those. They look like they come with crinoline or something. It's a little too girly girl for me, thanks."
I immediately had to put those curtains back because I was afraid that maybe they would need the frou frou once they were hanging and that they'd look terrible and lonely hanging there exposed. "Oooh, this says linen. I love me some linen pants. Mama, let's get these instead."
Mags hates linen. "Put those ivory ones down."
"Why? They'll look so good though, with everything."
"When was the last time you washed the curtains you have?"
"What?"
A pause. A very long pause. Very curious eyes widen as a dim a-ha light goes off in the back of the child's head.
"You're supposed to wash them? What? Do they party when I'm not there?"
Mags rolled her eyes hard enough to make me see her as a teenager. "Yeah, Danita. Dust mites really know how to get down. You know how you are. You could put a stain on the blackest carpet there is, so how do you figure you're going to be able to have white curtains?"
Touche, Mags. Touche.
Curtains, panels, valances, treatments, hooks, rods and adornments, oh my. I felt like I needed a medical treatment after 45 minutes in that place. Frilly or not so frilly? Solid or print?
Where is Nate Berkus when you need him, was all I could keep thinking. Seriously, it's just a studio, it's not forever, and sure it deserves to be decorated, but this was requiring some sort of overall vision -- even if you read this thing sporadically you know vision is not something I'm exhibiting too much of lately.
But I've got curtains. I really like them because they block just enough sunshine to extend my slumber each morning; however, they're just hanging out there sort of color-blocking the wall that now seems incredibly, painfully white.
So now I have to find something to go on the wall in the space between the two curtained windows. Mags is talking mirror, Danita is looking for anyone who wants to give a pretty golden one away. The mirrors I'm seeing are either ugly and really cheap looking or priced so high that I'm convinced I couldn't afford to look at myself in it each day -- it can't possibly cost that much to look at myself.
But now that I've extended my lease and look to stay put in Philly for at least another year, I'm realizing that I've got to get serious about creating an environment that reflects me. This means finding additional things to put on the wall. Mags is all about wall adornments. For her, the less wall, the better. My sister, on the other hand, will immediately start groaning, "Who the hell you think is going to be doing all that damn spacklin' when it's time to move out? I sure as hell ain't. You better put that hammer down. Shiyid. You in the livin' room to focus on the TV, it don't matter what's hanging up behind your head. You ain't got eyes in the back of your head to look at the painting and the television."
So wall stuff. I'm now looking for wall stuff -- picture frames, art, shelves, whatever.
Help me.