The Sofa and the Kindle

"I'm not a literary genius...I was not an orphan. I have never blown anyone for coke or let other people do coke off any part of my body. I have never struggled with addiction and I was never molested. Tragically, my life has only been moderately fucked up. I'm not writing this book to share wisdom or to inspire people." 
 -- Sarah Silverman, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee

I am seventeen percent of the way through Sarah Silverman's new book on my new (to me) Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G, 6" Display, White - 2nd Generation. I think that's right.

Today was a big, big day in that I was lovingly handed down two of my favorite friends' two most cherished possessions. One handed down his kindle, and one handed down her Arhaus sofa (the kind with the down cushions that you squish into). They both seemed a little wistful to see these things go, but I reassured them that this is an Open Adoption. I'll send pictures. They can visit any time they want, confident in the knowledge that these treasures have a home just as loving and appreciative as their own. They won't drive by and see the kindle tied up in the yard, or the sofa sitting on the front porch. 

My quest for the perfect sofa has been in overdrive since I moved last Spring, because I refused to move the old one into the new place. There wasn't anything wrong with it, but I stopped liking it, and I refused to move it.

This has meant a long summer of guests literally sitting on the floor (utterly without complaint...at least not to my face), but I have stuck to my guns. The Big Ass Chair seats two at the most -- and even that requires a certain romantic commitment... not to mention an embrace of certain principles of yoga.

The rule is if I don't love it, it can't live here. I'm not all snooty about it -- I'm happy to go without until the right thing presents itself. I have made one exception for a lamp I like that has an ugly shade, because it seemed a little extreme to light the living room with a bare ass bulb. I can picture the shade I want, but I haven't found it yet.

My bud Ian says my problem is champagne tastes on a beer budget -- and that's part of it -- but that isn't precisely true. I just have very, very specific taste, which I have a very difficult time articulating. I wasn't born speaking Dwell Magazine, I'm learning the vocabulary one painstaking mistake at a time. For a long time when I tried to describe "contemporary," I was saying "modern," and ended up with some terrible Jetsonian errors.

Harriette in her Kitchen

I do know my friend Harriette's house in the country (our bleugrass Hamptons) is perfect, so at least she gives me a jumping-off point, but it's a point of inspiration-only. I know her sofa is a magnificent B & B Italia and that if I had it, the general response would not be "wow!" (as it is when you see Harriette's), but rather "who does she think she's kidding?" It's Art, and I'm not sure I can pull off a room where you sit on the Art.

Luckily, I can read all about it in all the Design Magazines I plan to subscribe to on the new Kindle.

Today is the first time I ever touched one, and yes, I do realize I am several years late to the party. I wasn't boycotting them -- as some writers do -- it was just on the list of things I hadn't gotten around to. I've never had a "sky is falling" philosophical opposition to them "replacing" books. I won't be hauling the kindle to book club. There are books I want to keep and physically annotate and look at on my shelves so I can go back to them over and over again, but honestly, not all that many. I've never been much of a book hoarder.

I am, however, both a compulsive reader, and an insanely fast one. On any given weekend, I can power through a half dozen new releases that have piled up on my desk during the week. If they're good, I try to force myself to slow down because I want to make them last, but I never can. Factor in the insomnia and I constantly run out of things to read in the middle of the night, long after the bookstores are closed and amazon isn't shipping.

The kindle strikes me as a perfect remedy for that. The new Sarah Silverman is a good example. She is way, way too scatological for my taste in humor. Sometimes I think she's funny, and sometimes a little repulsive. I wouldn't take down a tree for this book, but I am happy to read it. Midway through, I did have to text Michael and ask him if the Kindle lit up, or if I was expected to turn on the lamp like a goddamn animal. I can see myself reading it by kerosene during the next Ice Storm.

I am not an early adopter (remember, I insisted writers bring me their stories on disk for years because their stupid attachments wouldn't open and I really didn't see "that whole email thing catching on"), but I'm not a Luddite either. My cousin and I had a long talk yesterday where I explained to him the fax machines of yore with the curly paper, and he made fun of the days when I tied my columns to the ankles of carrier pigeons and dispatched them throughout the city.

Disdain for technology is a luxury for folks way higher up the literary food chain than I am. It's fine to adore Wendell Berry and all, but it's equally fine to remember that his lovely wife types all his manuscripts. I don't have a wife. I have facebook. And if somebody shows me something that makes my life easier and better, I am happy to take them up on it. I love information and I love knowledge (two different things, I realize) and I'm glad to improve my access to both.

As I was typing this, however, I got a voicemail from my BFF that says, "I am calling you on the Gmail."  She said I could call her back on it too. I have no idea what that means, but apparently, somebody has now replaced telephones. Perhaps she will read this blog crudely fashioned from twigs and berries and call me back. Last Thanksgiving, I talked to her on The Skype while she was in Siberia, so if she says phones are over, we'd best believe her.

Between you and me, I suspect It's Like Havin' a Dove Field.

The Tao of Craigslist

I hate my old sofa. It's a good sofa; it probably has a million years of wear left in it, I just don't like it anymore. It was my first grown-up furniture purchase, about 20-some years ago. Up until then, I furnished everything via the design school of "Want this?" which meant my apartment was where all the relatives' cast-offs went to die. So buying the sofa was a big deal -- a proud moment.

At the time, I liked antiques. About 15 years ago, my taste shifted to contemporary. Not crazy-modern, just something you'd see in Dwell or Metropolitan Home (before it went out of business), as opposed to say Southern Living (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's hard to find something simultaneously insanely stylish, dog-resistant, and movie-night-comfortable. This is for the TV room (the living room furniture can afford to just look pretty -- but the TV room is where everybody hangs out most...after the Kitchen.) I've been actively shopping for this dream sofa for at least a decade, but I haven't been able to commit. It's like porn, I can't define it -- but I'll know it when I see it.

This Graham and Green number is nice, for example -- and it'd be great for the parlor -- but this isn't how I dress to lie around and read books in Howard the Home Theater. Also, it was ID'd as a sofa, but I'm pretty sure it's a loveseat, or else she's a GIANT. Although as demonstrated by the BigAssChair purchase, I clearly don't know the difference between the two.

I finally realized that as long as I kept the old, loathed sofa, the law of inertia would keep me from getting a new one. (Or as my Mom put it, I needed to "fung the shway" in this place -- nothing new comes in til something old goes out -- not that she would approve of getting a new sofa when there's still life in the old one.) Maybe sitting on the cold wood floors would be a motivator. So my pals Phoef and Dave dragged the old sofa to the office, and then I posted it on craigslist. (I just saw on the news where somebody got killed when a robber came to his house to buy his craigslist diamond ring -- which is where I feel compelled to point out: I do not have any diamond anything. I don't even have a sofa for chrissake. Keep it movin' pal...nothing to see here.)

So far: not one nibble. Nobody seems to want my old sofa (though it has come in handy a few times at the office, and that will probably end up being its permanent home).

I headed over to craigslist this morning to check out my competition, and I was embarrassed I hadn't done a better job of "selling" it.  Because every sofa (but mine) has a story.

One guy writes elaborately, in defense of his sectional, "I am recently divorced and honestly [would]  just rather have a futon for my place. No other reason I am getting rid of them." (I find myself wondering if he's protesting a little too much? What are the "other reasons" someone might infer? Somebody died on it? Somebody was born on it? Something worse?)

Another owner of a "nice sleeper" discloses,  "There is one small burn hole on the left arm of the sofa but we do not smoke in the house. It's really no big deal." (Points for the correct spelling of It's, but that seems a little antagonistic -- it's probably up to the buyer to determine whether or not burn-holes and smoke damage are "a big deal.") They add, "Also, we have dogs so the couch will need to be vacuumed." OK, I can see that (but I do wonder why they don't just vacuum it themselves?)  They close helpfully with, "The color in the picture looks a little weird but it's just the lighting and the fact that it was taken with a cell phone camera."

Apparently, no one's satisfied with the quality of their cell. Another ad points out, "The pictures make the chairs look worn down. They are not worn, it's just the type of fabric. Kind of like what suede does when brushed different ways?" Fair enough.

The chairs look pretty good actually.

But I wouldn't give $100 bucks for 'em.