| I spent a recent weekend curled up with a stack | | | | vase over. I suppose the person who would work |
| of decorating magazines. I read them cover to | | | | at such a desk would have no need of a mouse |
| cover - usually back to front, but that's the way I | | | | pad, paper clips, or a pile of sticky notes. I wish I |
| read most magazines and newspapers. I studied | | | | could work like that. |
| each photograph and tried to determine the | | | | I want to know what the rooms in the |
| particular design concept that was being | | | | photographs look like a week later. Are the same |
| presented. I looked at the number and placement | | | | three Granny Smith apples still in perfect position |
| of accessories, how and where arrangements of | | | | on the glass-topped table? Is the fringe on the |
| items were hung on the walls, choices of color | | | | cashmere afghan still draped just so over the arm |
| and texture, and flooring selections. Each photo | | | | of the rocking chair in the baby's room? Does the |
| was scrutinized in the minutest detail. At some | | | | kitchen counter look bare without the tureen of |
| point I started to wonder for whom these | | | | soup and the matching soup bowls? I mean, the |
| absolutely gorgeous rooms were designed. | | | | soup was eaten, wasn't it? Am I losing my |
| Bedside tables held no alarm clocks or clock | | | | perspective here? |
| radios. While there was usually an abundance of | | | | Show me a playroom after the children have |
| decorative items, there were no tissue boxes or | | | | been forced to put away the toys. I'll bet there |
| eyeglass cases. Dressers displayed beautifully | | | | are no cunning arrangements of stuffed animals |
| arranged floral creations and perhaps a cut glass | | | | having tea, and the blocks aren't stacked into |
| perfume bottle or two, with ornamental stoppers. | | | | just-right pyramids with one block placed in front |
| No jewelry boxes, no lotion bottles, none of the | | | | and a little to the side. The pillows are all over the |
| everyday stuff of life. I don't know about you but | | | | room and the bedspread is trailing onto the floor. |
| I want a telephone at the side of my bed. And | | | | That's real. |
| someplace handy for the TV remote. | | | | I realize that the decorating magazines present |
| And the bathrooms! Don't even get me started | | | | rooms and arrangements that are idealized and |
| on the bathrooms! Do the users of these | | | | stylized. They are intended to give our |
| bathrooms ever need to replace the toilet paper | | | | imaginations a jumping-off point; we are meant to |
| or the hand soap? Do they have their hair done | | | | adapt their ideas to our own needs. They do a |
| weekly (maybe daily?) at beauty- or barber-shops | | | | wonderful job and I will continue to peruse the |
| and thus have no need of shampoo and | | | | glossy pages of each publication. Occasionally, |
| conditioner bottles? Toothbrushes, toothpaste and | | | | however, I'd appreciate a view of a real room, |
| floss? The men don't have to shave and the | | | | spiffed up for company, perhaps, but real. I want |
| women have no need of makeup? Streamlining | | | | to be able to imagine waking up to the clock |
| and organization can only take you so far. Sooner | | | | radio, to see myself sitting at the computer and |
| or later you need a place for feminine supplies, | | | | actually getting some work done, to know where |
| room deodorizers, and the extra cotton balls and | | | | I would store the supply of makeup without |
| swabs that don't fit into the pretty little designer | | | | which I cannot face the world. I want to think |
| containers. And I can't be the only person who | | | | that I could actually live in the room. Isn't that the |
| thinks that a plunger should be stored someplace | | | | point of the whole exercise? Don't we all want |
| handy to the location of possible need. | | | | comfortable homes that suit our life styles, |
| No cords for the lamps, no tangle of wires for | | | | organized and better looking, maybe, but still us? |
| the home office computer system. One | | | | Go take a look at the pictures in a decorating |
| photograph featured an elegant "work space" with | | | | magazine. See if you agree with me. I think I'm |
| a large bouquet of flowers drooping fetchingly | | | | going to go clean out a couple of drawers and |
| over the printer. I could imagine spent blossoms | | | | straighten a bookcase shelf or two. It won't end |
| dropping into the works, and I couldn't imagine | | | | up picture perfect, but it will be real. |
| how to open the paper tray without knocking the | | | | |