Drama Queen

The Well-Appointed Vanity (or Necessities for Feisty Girly Girls) has always

/ wvfurandroot / 10 Comments
Possibly my favorite piece of furniture.

Possibly my favorite piece of furniture.

I believe it’s a basic truth that everyone over the age of 12 needs their own desk. I also believe it’s a basic truth that every woman over the age of 12 needs a well-appointed dressing table.

I’m a girly girl. Get over it. (I’m also reasonably smart and getting really good at basic home repair.)

One of my early memories is of my father building me a dressing table/desk. I don’t think it had anything to do with his recognition of these basic truths. I’m pretty sure he was having an attack of need-to-play-with-tools-and-wood manly-man-itis. I was about 6 or 7. In terms of aesthetics, the dressing table/desk left a lot to be desired. In short, it was a piece of plywood on pre-fabricated legs painted white with a border of gold paint along the top edges of the table. I can remember us discussing the “fancy” line of gold. I loved it, though I don’t remember what happened to the table. More than likely it was discarded during one of our moves.

At the age of 11 or so, my mother went on a tear and “did” my bedroom in Sears French Provincial with hot pink, glue-down carpet squares, jungle green walls, and a lime green canopy. It was my first coordinated furniture and, um, stunning. Mom is colorful.

A couple of years later, when I began wearing makeup, I turned the nightstand into a dressing table with the help of a bean bag chair. From the beginning, I’ve had issues with standing in a bathroom trying to apply eye shadow. It’s not comfortable, the lighting is usually horrible, and, well, it’s just wrong. I suppose there is something very amusing about a young, wannabe hippy sitting amidst faux French Provincial furniture on a faux fur beanbag chair in front of a daisy-shaped, lighted makeup mirror and experimenting with tres chic lip gloss as well as green mascara. And reeking of Wind Song. With a well-thumbed copy of Siddhartha on the nightstand.

After the death of the French provincial, in the midst of the Disco Era, I resorted to sitting on the bed with a basket and a mirror. The room was decorated in Early Attic with touches of brass and a fair amount of wicker. The makeup had expanded to include glitter eyeliner, concealer, and vivid lipstick.

In the late 80s, my antique phase, I acquired a late 40’s table. It was designed to be covered completely in lots of gaudy fabric with a 3-panel mirror, but mine had no fabric or mirror. I stripped it, stained it, hung a mirror on the wall, and added an ice cream chair. It was quirky. It was functional. It was cheap. It was a lot of flippin’ work.

Sitting at the table, my thoughts on the necessity of a dressing table began to coalesce. It was nice having a place dedicated to the morning ritual of coffee, makeup, and staring out the window. It had a drawer, far-too-small, into which went the understated and ridiculously expensive makeup of a young woman on the move. The top of it, far too small, was littered with baskets to hold the stuff that wouldn’t fit in the drawer.

In what was probably Not A Good Idea Financially, but never regretted, I cashed out a little more of the house equity to decorate the master bedroom when buying out the ex. In all our years of barn remodeling drama, the master bedroom kept getting pushed to the end of the list (and it was a very long list). It was a horror story (the décor, that is). Delighted to be sleeping alone, I wanted the room to be comfortable and decadent. I started looking at bedroom furniture.

Inexplicably, I did not want antiques or quirky. While I love those things, as my home will attest, I wanted something different for the master bedroom. I kept returning to what the designers refer to as traditional. And I wanted it all to match. And I wanted a dressing table.

The dressing table proved to be a problem. In the past couple of years, dressing tables have begun making a comeback and more and more manufacturers are including them with bedroom suites, but at the time I was on the forefront of an emerging trend. The only ones I could find, precious few, were in high-end lines of furniture. I may be a hedonist and financially imprudent, but I am not stupid. Twenty-five thousand dollars for bedroom furniture is not just stupid, but possibly criminal. However, I had found exactly what I wanted and the dressing table was breathtaking.

I knew the markup on furniture was insane and after months of searching, online and off, I found a discount distributor who could get it to me for less than 25% of retail. Woo Hoo! It was all perfectly legal and proof that the markup on furniture borders on criminal.

The delivery of the furniture was high drama due only in part to having to hoist it up to the second floor and angle it through the silly French doors that lead to nowhere. A good deal of the drama was centered on the fact that I had never seen the furniture up close and personal. I found it online and, after much dithering and hand-wringing, special ordered it. No refund, no return.

It was (is) magnificent and perfect. The dressing table is beyond wonderful. Even after a few years, I marvel at it. It is freakin’ awesome.

Lacquer Box (Memento).

Lacquer Box (Memento).

Being in possession of the best dressing table on the planet, I feel qualified to list the absolute necessities of the proper dressing table.

It must have drawers.

It must have surface space.

It must have comfortable seating.

It must be well-appointed.

The well-appointed thing probably varies, but I think there are basics.

Mirror – one large and one smaller magnified one. The large one is required so you can double-check that no one is sneaking up on you when you’re pretending to be a chanteuse of remarkable talent and singing into your deodorant/microphone. It’s best if it’s mounted on the wall. A magnifying mirror helps keep eyeliner on the eyes and lipstick on the mouth and is really helpful in eradicating unibrows and menopausal mustaches.

Hairbrush – a good hairbrush is critical. You can’t sit at a dressing table and not brush your hair. It would be bad form and get you thrown out of the Diva Hall of Fame. If you insist on keeping the deodorant in the bathroom, the hairbrush can serve as a microphone.

Clock – ornamental and battery-powered. If you’re like me, you may lose time sitting at the dressing table first thing in the morning. It’s good to have a reality check that isn’t too disconcerting. Digital is out. So are cords.

Lighting – flattering, but realistic. This is the trickiest one, but crucial. While you don’t need reality (especially first thing in the morning), you do need enough representativeness that you don’t end up looking like Heath Ledger’s Joker portrayal. You also need morning light – it’s cheerful, refreshing, and inspiring.

Geegaws – not too many. I am on a de-cluttering, anti-junk binge, but that doesn’t mean that ornamental mementos and somewhat useless crap are completely verboten. A dressing table practically begs for it. The rule is that you must absolutely love it and that it be tied to some memory that makes you smile.

Perfume – in a pleasing bottle.. I rarely wear perfume as I work with many folks with allergies and/or asthma. However, I do have a signature perfume that I’ve been wearing exclusively since the Wind Song ran out. (Lord! How I hate that term signature fill-in-the-blank.) Nonetheless, perfume that’s been chosen for its personal appeal and not because it’s been heavily marketed or has a nice bottle is required. I wear perfume for special occasions, so just simply smelling it brings back good times. I don’t particularly like the bottle that my perfume comes in, so I’m on the lookout for an antique or reproduction spray bottle – you know, the kind with the little rubber squishy sprayer thingie.

Makeup – using the term loosely. I don’t always wear makeup. But I do always sit at the dressing table. Whether it’s just moisturizer or body lotion, applying something is a good way to re-link the inner and the outer after a night where body and mind go their separate ways.

Tranquility – No bills. No junk. No clutter. Don’t use the dressing table as a desk except, possibly, journaling.

Black Silk Pajamas – While not absolutely necessary for the dressing table, every woman should own a pair. Just because. (A Beloved Robe goes without saying.)

And there you have it – the well-appointed dressing table.

Whine in ’09

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments
Tirony
Tirony

I’m thinking that maybe if I have a major, no-holds-barred, massive whine fest, I can find one more hand-hold on the cement block wall that is my life these days and, um, get-a-grip.

Or not.

But in any case, I’m going to rant and rave and more than likely delete 90% of it before rock-and-rolling through this house like the avenging angel of housecleaning. OK, I’m going to commence cleaning after I finish this and after I deal with the flat tire.

It’s always been true that when my life is at its most chaotic, I slow boil on the sofa for a day or two and then get up and do something not particularly helpful to the crisis at hand – something like putting new shelf paper in the pantry or alphabetizing the spices. There’s a peace of sorts in doing something that creates a sense of order, no matter how trivial, but also does no harm. There’s not anything I can do to stop the onslaught of chaos, but I can put clean sheets on the bed. I can wreak genocide on dust bunnies. I can clean out the junk drawer. It’s live-action metaphor that will make me feel empowered to effect some sort of change.

But really. I can’t take one more damn thing.

Way back when, in another geologic era of my life, I was sitting in a doctor’s office waiting for my appointment and perusing a months-out-of-date copy of Redbook. In the issue was a stress test which I decided to take as it was now well past my appointment and my stress levels were rising as I considered all the things I wasn’t getting done while I waited.

The quiz had things like:

  • If you got married or divorced in the past year, give yourself 4 points.
  • If you moved in the past year, give yourself 2 points, 4 if it was a move of more than 100 miles.
  • If you had a baby in the past year, give yourself 4 points.
  • If you changed jobs in the past year, give yourself 1 point.
  • If you experienced the death of a loved-one, give yourself 3 points, 4 if it was someone in your immediate family.

And so on.

The only questions I didn’t get the maximum points on were the death of a loved one, bankruptcy, legal problems, and life-threatening illness. When I tallied my points, I was in the category of “honey, give it up, do not pass go, do not collect $200, just check into the nearest asylum and get fitted for a straight jacket.”

In retrospect, those were the good old days.

I cannot take one more damn thing.

And yet, every time I utter those words, one more damn thing happens. Some of it is my failure to adequately plan and/or putting my faith and trust in the wrong people. Some of it had nothing to do with me, but affects me nonetheless, and a great deal of it is in the nibbled to death by ducks category.

The past couple of years have been horrific. Really. I can’t take one more damn thing.

Nibbled to death by ducks is an expression I was introduced to about ten years ago. I think it’s British, though I’m not sure. As I understand it, it’s that state of stress brought on by a series – a series that feels eternal –  of minor catastrophes and inconveniences that goes on and on and on. And on. Endlessly on. Pointless, meandering, irritating. Like this paragraph.

I think my life shows that I can handle the big stuff – the really catastrophic oh-my-God shit. While I’d like to do it with more grace and style than I do, I do, some how, time and again, seem to get through it with my sense of humor intact.

To be fair to myself (although it could just be that I’m too stressed to see the trees for the forest), I seem to have more than my share of big stuff. I’ve quit trying to find some meaning in that. OK, mostly quit. These days when I do find myself veering in that direction, I’m most often reminded of the biblical book of Job. If you know your Bible, you know that Job didn’t do a damn thing to deserve any of the stuff inflicted on him – it was all some bizarre pissing contest between Jehovah and Lucifer. Job reacted in such a way that Jehovah won the bet and thus was rewarded in the end.

Now I’m not nearly as blameless as Job and I’m not about to thank Jehovah or any other idea of god for the endless shit that keeps whirling about me. It’s my fervent belief that if there is a sentient creator, he/she/it is not so petty. All this crap is not going to result in a reward in the afterlife or make me a better person or build character.  If that were true, I’d be the second-coming of Mother Teresa already.

Right now, I’m working feverishly to keep my sense of humor. (It’s not for nothing that the Dalai Lama is a fan of the Three Stooges.)  For the first time ever, I really do feel like I’m in danger of losing it. To not be able to laugh is my vision of hell. That’s rock bottom – the point of no return. I think we all have one and yours might be something different, but mine is the ability to laugh. I’m the person who usually doesn’t need a couple of years to find the humor in some catastrophe – those “someday we’ll laugh about this” events. I’m usually the one, often inappropriately, laughing in the middle of it.

The irony of the flat tire I was greeted with yesterday is so in-your-face that if I read it in a piece of fiction, I would roll my eyes at the heavy-handedness of the writer. Yet, it wasn’t until just an hour or so ago that I realized the dark humor of it. I still haven’t had the belly-laugh-until-you-cry moment, but hopefully it’s on the horizon. It is pretty damn funny when you think about it.

No. I’m not going to explain the irony of the tire. It would take too long and require even more whining. But, trust me. It’s pretty funny and I will laugh about it. I will. Even if I have to fake it.

Afterword:  Self-reliant tire-ing is not going well. The rain isn’t helping.  And I’ve yet to begin cleaning which will, perversely, make me feel better even though I hate cleaning with every fiber of my being.

Peignoir and Negligee Marketing Opportunity

/ wvfurandroot / 11 Comments
This might do.

This might do.

There’s a neglected market out there.

I get a lot of hits involving the search terms peignoir and negligee. Even in this economic climate, women (presumably) want frou frou nightwear.

Those poor lost souls wandering the Internet in search of white peignoir lace and negligee blue sleeves must be really desperate if they’re clicking on something called W. Va. Fur and Root to find it.

Having done the desperation thing in search of the Beloved Bathrobe (the post that is confoozling people’s search engine), I’ve spent some time looking for a peignoir. By no means ratcheted up to desperation status, I would like one. Perhaps those lost searchers sense my sympathetic spirit. Or not. I wish they’d leave a comment. Even a where the hell’s the “black negligee halter”? would tickle me.

We could start a club or a petition.

There really is a dearth of over-the-top-Hollywood-in-chiffon nightwear. If I were an obliging blogger, I would post the links to some vintage clothing sites I’ve found where they might have some luck. It’s probably cruel to post this as it’s just going to entice the poor dears all over again.

Maybe an open thread? Women Who Want Peignoirs and the Men Who Love Them. Naw. I can see that getting out of control soon.

Speaking of which, I did have one search – white control panel negligee – that bothered me. My ideal waft-around-the-house-inappropriately-elegant-40s-glam nightwear couldn’t wouldn’t mustn’t involve control anything.

Any entrepreneurs out there take notes. Most of those searching want white, but blue runs a close second. Black shows up now and again. I’m dithering between white and black, but sometimes think a dark red could be the one. No marabou, fringe, smocking, embroidery (unless a very tasteful fleur de lis or similar motif), no ribbon rosebuds and certainly nothing that involves a matching garter belt. One does not wear a garter belt with a peignoir. That’s just gauche. I want the gown in a silk charmeuse and the robe in something transparent and floaty with minimal ruffles. It goes without saying that I want the damn thing long enough. Hell, I want a train on that robe. (No ermine.)