Crappy Addictions I Am Addicted To

Thankfully I don't have addictions to crack or gambling. Let's all give a little nod of thanks for that.

I do, however, have crappy obsessions that won't kill me or make me lose my house but they are worth sharing with my friends (and anyone else who might be reading this):

Crappy Addictions:

1. IPod games - I have worked my way through a number of IPod games. These games have the power to consume me sometimes to the point where I don't speak to my husband, miss huge plot points in Lost or wake up in the middle of the night to get the baby her pacifier and then happily jump back into bed to play my game since I am up. Specifically, these are some of the super nerdy games I have been playing (although I rarely play more than one game at a time - instead I play and play one game until I bore with it and get a new one) in order: Build A Lot, Ranch Rush, Myst, Hangman, Sally's Spa, Cooking Dash, Where's Waldo and, currently, Bejeweled. I have my eye on Monopoly next.

2. Auction sites like Gilt Groupe.

3. Buying greatly discounted baby clothes on said sites.

4. Finding a table the sale size as a useless nook on my deck.

There are probably more but I have lost steam and, frankly, I want to play Bejeweled.

Crappy Stories I Can't Stop Reading

I don’t know how we pinned the term on it exactly, but around our house we call them “sad sack stories.” These are stories with headlines like “Man Falls Off Stone Mountain” or, more hopefully, “Dog Risks Life to Save Other Dog.”

I read these stories a lot. I actively search them out. On average, depending on workload, I probably check CNN’s Justice tab at least once a day. A cold case? I’m on it. Specific regional stories from local news affiliates? I am reading those, too.

Jon doesn’t get it. Maybe it’s because an integral part of reading sad sack stories is sharing them. When talking to Jon, I now have to preface them with “Um, can I tell you another sad sack story?” He usually says, “Yes,” because he is nice. But several times he has asked, politely of course, “Um, what’s the point of these stories?” Like I am supposed to come up with a moral or something.

The thing is I don’t have an answer for him. I could probably make one up—like, “I am just confirming that my life isn’t so bad,” or, “it’s a crazy mixed up world we live in,” or, “I work from home, so what?” The real reason is that I gravitate to these stories because I learned that’s what you should do.

Growing up in a small town, as I did, you know everyone’s business. And the business that people are sharing the most is the sad sack stuff—“He just dropped dead of a heart attack," or, ”they just had to shut the doors and walk away,” or, “she broke her wrist AND her sister has cancer.” The next step, of course, is to either join a prayer chain or take over some soup to the afflicted party.

While a celebratory high-school graduation banner might elicit a public smile and nod and a privately whispered, “A little showy, don’t you think?,” a sad sack story pulls people together every time.

So, maybe since writing that last paragraph I have come up with a reason I love these stories. Because sitting here in Brooklyn, listening to a woman talking loudly about healthcare outside my window, I am still a small town girl at heart. I want to be viscerally connected to the individuals that stream past me. And while I might not get on the prayer chain or FedEx some soup to that dog that risked its life, I can share the story, and keep us all a little more connected.

You’ll have to excuse me, now, the story outside my window is really getting good.

Crappy Stuff I Keep Picking Up Off of the Street

I read somewhere that elephants, when they come upon the bones of another elephant, may investigate the bones and even carry them with them, some times for miles.

I know how they feel, because I do the same thing with crap I find on the street.

Fancy interior design sites talk about apartments, houses, furniture, etc. having “good bones.” I guess this means they are sturdy or well made, or perhaps it’s just a way to justify that expensive interior design project or reupholstery job. As in: “This has ‘good bones’ so I am going to spend more than it would cost to get a new vintagehip chair to reupholster this old vintagehip chair in HOUNDSTOOTH!”

I am not a woman of much means, so instead of paying a professional to recover my bones, I prefer to go out and find new ones, preferably within a three-block radius of my apartment.

Whenever I see a piece of furniture or other houseware sitting on the street I am drawn to it. Like the elephants, I might even carry it with me for a while before deciding to jettison it in some new location, or (gasp) bring it inside. When circumstances prevent me from picking it up—I’ve got a business meeting, I am going to a play in a very small black box theater, I am already carrying something else I found—I mourn its loss. I worry that someone else won’t find it, that it will just become trash. That its life will end. I once carried a beat-up kitchen stool with me for nine blocks before realizing that I already had enough beat-up kitchen stools.

This is the clever conundrum of living in New York—the amount of usable stuff on the curb is inversely proportional to the amount of room you currently have in your apartment. But things do make their way in. In no particular order, here are some things I found on the street that are in my apartment right now:

Dish drainer
Wall mounted file holder
Vintage blue glass Ball jars
Folding table
50s compression pole lamp

Don’t worry, there’s been much more in the past but the fancy interior design websites have told me that I have to “edit.”

Last night, I came home and there was a bedside table lamp sitting in the middle of the living room. My husband, let’s call him Babar, had been looking for one like this for his side of the bed—bendable neck, focused light—and there it was. It wasn’t in a bag or anything, so I asked where he got it. Babar: “It was in the lobby of our building. I almost didn’t take it, but then I went back.” Me: “Why didn’t you take it immediately?” Babar: “I was worried you’d think I was just bringing more junk into the house.”

Clearly Babar needs to read this post.

Crappy Black Pants I Can’t Stop Buying

If anyone was living in Boston in the late ‘90s, you may have called them “going out pants,” or “booty pants” (if you went to BU). You wore them with some sort of “going out top” which was probably low-cut and had some sort of sparkle on it. You “finished off the look” with black high-heeled boots and a look on your face that said I may be intelligent but I am definitely available (Harvard, MIT, you took the train in from Wellesley).

As the millennium dawned and fashion styles changed, these became “cute pants for work” which you “paired” with “cute tops” and “totally versatile cardigans you can wear with anything” (a little redundant, don’t you think, BC?). You wore white cross-trainers to work and switched into pointed-toed kitten heels in leopard print because you were SASSY (we get it, Emerson).

Then you stopped wearing the pants. You threw their microfiber viscose rayon spandex stretchy selves into the trash (Goodwill) and moved on. You left them so far behind that you started referring to pants as “pant.”

Well, I didn’t. By last count I have 5 pairs of these pantS. And worse, I wear them. Every time I walk into TargeMarshaMaxx I seek them out. Maybe THIS time they are cuter. Maybe THIS time they are more fashion forward. Maybe THIS time they are made of a fabric that wasn’t cooked up by a scientist in a lab. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

But they are $20. And they fit better than 99.9% of the rest of the world’s pant. So, if you see me out at night, and you are like, I bet she just came from work, 8 years ago. Or, there I am working away and you are like, um, is she going out later, to 1997? You’re both right.