I am Joel's Charmless Coffee Table

I've realized over the past few weeks that I have feelings about my coffee table.

This is new.

I've never really felt anything about my coffee table before. I've noticed it, of course. I see that it's messy, or needs dusting. It sits in the middle of the living room, so I'm aware that it exists, and sometimes I step around it. I store books on the bottom shelf of it, so it even serves a purpose, but again, I've never looked at it and felt something.

Am I supposed to?

This all started back on Small Business Saturday. While out looking at thrift shops and antique shops, I saw a coffee table. It was an antique wooden pinball type game, the thin kind that use to hang on a wall, and someone had taken the frame, added legs, and converted it into a coffee table. It was a little bit cheesy, but also a little bit charming, and I liked it enough to circle back around the store to look at it again four or five times. Priced at an even hundred dollars (which was probably negotiable), it's within my budget, and when I looked at it I just thought, "That coffee table is really me." But then I thought, "I already have a coffee table, though. Oh well."

Since then, I keep looking at my coffee table and thinking, and feeling that it is somehow inadequate.

My coffee table expresses nothing about me as a person, and I feel like that pinball coffee table would.

Back when I was in college, I had a friend who liked to go to Pier One. We would walk around and look at bibelots, and candleholders, and glassware, and sculptures, and I'd always say that someday, when I had my own place that was semi-permanent and didn't have to worry about things getting broken or lost in moves, I would have nice stuff. Interesting stuff. Maybe some antiques. Stuff with some character.

Fast forward to seven years ago, when I moved to my first grownup apartment. The only furniture I owned after years of being a hall director was a random collection of lamps, pressed wood bookcases, odd shelving units, a nice rug, and my childhood wooden toybox, inherited from my father's childhood. And what did I do?

I recreated the scene from "Fight Club" where Jack orders his entire apartment from a catalog:



I went to Rooms to Go, where they specialize in selling you an entire room at a time rather than individual pieces of furniture, and I picked out a living room that matched my nice rug:



Including my coffee table.

And don't get me wrong: It's good furniture. It's seven years old, and still holding up well. The corners of the end tables are showing a little wear, and the chaise lounge, which I refer to as my fainting couch, is stained and starting to sink a little in the middle since I sit on it every day, but overall it's all still in good shape, and was probably a wise investment. It just has no character. There's no sense of individuality, except for the objects that I've placed on it. The table itself doesn't say anything about me, especially when it's sitting in a living room with nine pressed-wood bookcases from Target. Or it is saying something about me, and those things aren't very flattering.

I guess this is a part of adulthood that I've never really thought about: When do you fully establish your own style? And how long does the average grownup keep their furniture for? When should I buy some bookcases made of actual wood? Am I too old for prefab, pressed-wood furniture? What else in my apartment needs replacing? Is this even something I should worry about? Who cares what my coffee table looks like when I am averse to having people come inside and actually seeing it?

I don't know.

All I know is that lately I've had feelings about my coffee table, and they're feelings of dissatisfaction.

Jello Molds

Yesterday Kristin, Elizabeth, and I went estate saling. Over the course of four hours, we managed to hit six estate sales, two antique marts, and IHOP, but we all came away somewhat empty handed because most of the good stuff had been picked over by the Friday shoppers.

I did pick up some vintage Jello molds, though, little aluminum ones that are about a half cup each. When I got home, I put them in the dishwasher and then fell into a sleepytime coma on the couch for a few hours, and then this morning I made Jello:



Online, there were several tips on how to prep the molds to get Jello out of them without breaking when you unmolded it. I decided right away to skip running a knife around the inside edge of the mold, because those molds have fluted edges and I assumed that I would just slice the Jello to hell. I'm well aware of my own lacking knife skills.

Another tip said to spray the insides with cooking spray, tap out the extra, and then pour the Jello in. After it set, according the the internet, the Jello would "slide right out" when you inverted the mold and tapped it a little. This didn't happen. Or, more accurately, the spraying part happened, but it didn't work.

I tapped, and the Jello stayed put.

Given the failure of method number two and my lack of desire to try method number one, I opted to try the third method: Dipping the mold in hot water for "a few seconds" and then inverting it. When doing this, you have to be careful not to dip the mold in too far, or water will get into your Jello, but other than that, it seemed pretty easy, so I dipped:



and then inverted:



I dipped for too long, and my Jello got too hot and started melting. I ate the results, rinsed the plate, and tried again:



Perfect!

From now on, all Jello in this household will be served in tiny molds.

Why does it have so many nipples?

I frequently find myself questioning the things I see at the antique store. What is that? Why would someone buy that? What kind of home decor does that fit in with? After my trip today, when I stopped in while I was running errands, I have another question:



Why does that white pig with the giant ears have so many nipples?

And who's going to buy that? Who walks through the antique store and thinks, "Gosh, I really need... a seven inch pig ceramic lactating pig! Oh, happy day! This is the answer to my prayers!" other than someone with terrible, terrible issues?

It's like a Halloween farmyard nightmare.

Is that a Diana Ross menorah?

I'm starting to really, really love Nostalgia. Even though the only thing I've bought there (so far) is my fantastic orange clock, whenever I go I see things that I want to buy, or at least can't stop pondering.

Last time I went it was an industrial antique, a set of rusty, corroded doll-head molds:





I didn't buy it, because it was (and still is, as of today) $1100, but isn't it spectacular? I want to hang it over my bookcase and stare at it, but I also fear that when you stare into the creepy doll heads, the creepy doll heads also stare into you. Still, it's unique, it's striking, and I'm still thinking about it a month later. It's not so much an antique as it is art, but I'm not really in the right income bracket to become a serious art collector. I'm barely a frivolous one.

I went back today with my parents, who are in town, and the doll-head mold was right there in the window. Upon seeing it, they somehow resisted the siren song of rusty factory salvage, and went on to look at other things, so I followed, and that's where I saw something even more strange:



I stared, and it stared back as I wondered, "Is that Diana Ross? Like, 70's disco Diana Ross? Why is her hair made of bubbles? Wait, are those candleholders? Is that a Diana Ross... menorah?"

Now that I have time to study it, several things have occured to me:

1) It's not a menorah. It doesn't have enough candleholders. It does have enough for Kwanzaa, though.

2) That's not Diana Ross. The eyes are wrong. It is a fabulous diva, though. With those huge gold hoops, the big hair, and the good bone structure, there's not really any question.

3) This may not have any religious purpose whatsoever. It has enough candles for kwanzaa, but then who would that lady be? Lady Kwanzaa? It could be for Diwali, I guess, since that doesn't really call for a specific amount of lights, but again, who would that lady be? And Diwali is about small lamps, not candles. I don't know of any other holidays that use lights, so maybe it's just a secular candleholder of some sort.

Unless, you know, disco is now a religion.

A Hideous, Terrible Beauty

Art speaks to people, but it doesn't always speak to everyone. When you see something you like, though, it calls out to you. It strikes a chord somewhere, and you feel like you have to have it. You may not be able to explain why, or even want to, but you just know that some things are meant to be together, like peanut butter and chocolate or me and the hideous, terrible clock that I bought today:



Yes, I own that now, and am proudly displaying it on top of a bookcase in front of the window.

It's a little over a foot tall, roughly the size of a box of breakfast cereal. It's molded of hard orange resin, some sort of plastic, and the mold was filled with decorative gravel before they poured the plastic in. Also, it weighs a ton. As a rough guess, it feels about the same as three or four bricks taped together. I can't find a manufacturer's stamp on it anywhere, and have no idea how old it is, but it feels kind of 70's to me. Someday, if I have a fireplace and mantel, I will put this clock upon it, and be happy.

You're probably wondering how this happened.

This morning, Kristin and I decided that we would hit the flea market before grabbing lunch and heading up to the ICU for visiting hours. I haven't been to the flea market since 2008, although I've driven past a number of times, and I was really disappointed. There were hardly any booths, possibly because of the rain, and the things for sale looked even worse than usual. It was more depressing than interesting:



and Kristin wanted to leave before we even got halfway through. I was ok with that, as the comic book dealer that was there last time was now gone. In an effort to salvage some of our morning, though, I suggested we go swing by Nostalgia, a store that Elizabeth said we would like.

Elizabeth was right.

They had shelves and shelves of vintage, antique, and not quite either objects:











We stayed for about two hours, looking at the good, the bad, the odd:



the really odd:



and in the case of my clock, the strangely endearing. They had a clear one in one booth and the orange one in another, and as soon as I saw it I had to have it. Thank God it was cheap. Kristin agreed that I should buy it if I wanted it even though it is hideous, but she really has no room to talk.

She has this on hold:



I'm assuming it speaks to her, but in comparing it to my clock, well, I just don't see it.

vintage toys

Today I went to a toy and collectible show, something I haven’t done in several years. Actually, now that I think about it, I haven’t gone to one since the 1990’s, although they do tend to have the kind of toys I like at comic shows. The odd thing is that they don’t seem to have them at toy shows anymore, or at least at this toy show. Instead, I saw a lot of oddly amusing vintage toys.

These monkeys, for example:



You really need to click the picture and see it bigger to see their crazy eyes. In the book Skeleton Crew Stephen King has a story about a killer windup monkey with cymbals, and I swear to God those monkeys look exactly the way I imagined that thing when I read it.

The Remco Movieland, on the other hand, intrigued me:



I wanted to buy it and bring it home to see how it worked. It says it comes with six movies. Are they real movies? Do they actually move, or is it like a slideshow? And how much fun would it actually be to play with? Most kids don’t like sitting in the dark for very long, especially if they’re trying to play with their cars at the same time, but I think if I’d had that as a kid I would have played with it all the time.

I never would have played with this, but I’m wondering who did:



I was laughing so hard I thought the woman was going to ask me to leave the table.