Cranky nest

When I got married I turned into a frenzied, brunette, way-nicer-to-other-people, Martha Stewart. I hung pictures, I matched place mats to candles to napkins, I put up shelves in every room (and by "put up" I mean "supervised my husband"), I bought serving dishes at Crate and Barrel to match the place mats and the candles and the napkins, and no one was allowed to be happy until those godawful hotel-style curtain rods were taken down and dumped in the basement and replaced (and by "no one" I mean "my husband").

And now? Now that I have been married just over one year? I am DOING EVERYTHING OVER AGAIN. Today I bought picture frames to replace the other picture frames. I bought a lamp shade to replace the old, yet still perfectly functioning, lamp shade. The duvet and duvet cover we got for our wedding lasted less than 12 months- we have different ones already. And I own 497 place mats and two dozen table cloths.

A friend of mine calls this "nesting". If you're still nesting after a year, I think it's called a psychosis.

Last night I dreamed that Phillip and I moved to a different apartment. A huge swank apartment with dark wood floors, dark beams in the ceiling, excellent lighting, and a gorgeous view of the city. In real life I would kill for this apartment, but my dream self wasn't impressed, nor were the many dream friends who were helping us move. We were carting the furniture inside (which was velvety and fabulous and nothing like the, uh, Swedish Modern "pieces" I currently own) and we were all complaining. The angles were weird! Too many windows! Not enough cupboard space! Too old! Too creaky!

I know why I had this dream. Unless our nonexistent filthy rich great uncles drop dead sometime soon, we will never be able to buy a house in the city. My big fat meanie of a subconcious was sending me a bitter and cynical message: good luck finding anything you love. I want kids some day and because we're lacking in the Millions and Millions of Dollars department, we'll most likely be moving out of a cramped city apartment to some suburban monstrosity in a boring subdivision with a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot three minutes down the main drag.

One of my favorite houses- the kind of house you notice each time you drive by because it is THAT CUTE- was put up for sale a few days ago. It's not the biggest or prettiest house, it's old, and it's not in the most fabulous neighborhood. But the asking price? $497,000. Apparently it is built with gold bricks and diamond studded nails.