Props
I suspect this bugs me a bit because I have been looking for a vintage fan. And yeah, I have a terrarium and an edison bulb and an old canning jar full of flowers. I like my moss but I am genuinely entranced by design zeitgeist. Last time I was in CA, my mother and brother were comparing terrium techniques. Where’d that come from?
The line to read is the one where the author concedes that he has a bar cart of his own, but has never thrown a party. So that is really what the story is about: props for an unrequited aspiration. I am sorry you’re not happy, pal, but I sit on my modern chair reading by the light of an edison bulb. Right next to the moss terrium, no less. We eat breakfast (yup, homemade granola with market milk and market berries) at our kitchen table with the cut flowers. If you don’t, that’s cool. Just don’t cut me down to size for enjoying a quiet morning.
And then we brush our hair and put on clothes and check the mirror to confirm that we’re, to our own eyes at least, in sync with our sartorial aspirations and head into our days.
My grandmother raised succulents and arranged flowers. Her kitchen was straight out of Sunset Magazine. My mother’s, Country Living giving way to Martha Stewart Living. So also: bullshit. Nothing is new here.
PS. I brew kombucha, too. Which is enough of a pill that no one would bother if they didn’t drink kombucha. So why all the mirth?
