The schizophrenic nature of my wants has a nasty habit of rising up and chomping hold of my posterior, which means that I’ve spent another particularly blustery Saturday surfing other domesticated/crafty blogs where the women are blissed out, the children are adorable scamps, the crafts are pastel dreams, the houses are immaculate or immaculate-yet-lived in, and everything’s shot with a 1.8 50mm lens attached to a slightly-more-awesome-than-mine camera.
And I want that. I do, I do. I covet those lives displayed in those blogs, I do.
But here’s the thing.
As much as I want the lime green studio/writing room with the oversized wing chair-slash-jewel liberated for a song from a rummage sale, as much as I dream of the perfectly coordinated shabby chic house and the sundry brick-a-brack which constitutes the Nigella Lawson-meet-Martha Stewart craft porn, I do usually force myself to face facts and try to get a better bead on things.
For instance — we do not live in Maine. For whatever reason, the most awesome of the crafty porn blogs seem to come out of Maine, and from what I can tell, Maine is a land of rambling old houses not constructed out of mud, deciduous trees and friendly, LL Bean-clad people, a land where the lobster is heralded with the same vigor a New Mexican has for the green chile. And while it’s true that we have said to one another, “How ’bout Bangor?” over the last several months, I would hate for you to think that my sole inspiration in moving to Maine would be to tap into the crafting vibe the way suburbanites move to Taos for the hum.
And until we decide that yes, we’re hearty enough to face the cruel winter, we will remain in Albuquerque, in a tract house situated on a postage stamp’s worth of mesa on the west side, where “character” and “charm” were replaced with strip malls and Bumper Nutz.
Another thing — I am just not that single-minded. My previous job was a creative job, and one that I was good at . . . when I put the hammer down, popped on the iPod and forced myself to be the disciplined artist. Otherwise, it was a half-assed endeavor of earning a paycheck and giving it just enough effort as to not get hauled in front of the managing editor for an attitude adjustment. It takes the will of a god to keep my focus long enough to finish simple projects; there’s a reason I tend to knit socks instead of complicated cardigans. To transform the house from tract to cozy would require months of focus, and I know myself well enough to anticipate getting distracted in the middle of a painting project, leaving one wall lime green and the rest royal blue.
And then there’s the material aspect of it — finding those perfect second hand pieces to furnish a crafty porn blog requires days and weeks of sorting through jumble sales, yard sales, estate sales and thrift shops, which I can do in very small doses, but it’s time and it’s money, and the Capt’n — who jealously guards our weekends — would be a willing participant for about ten minutes before he’d get itchy, and then think to himself “Golly, I wonder how much of this stuff was owned by dead people,” which would creep him out just enough to pull me back home, empty handed.
Finally, what really stands in my way of domestic nirvana is my complete lack of ability when it comes to getting the details just so.
As a modern woman, I can’t seem to pull myself together — the right clothes and shoes and jewelry and handbag and makeup and hair is impossible, and that’s just simple girl maintenance. If my clothes are right, my shoes are wrong. If from the neck down, I’m together, from the neck up, I’m a frizzy-haired, clown-faced wreck. I’ve never been able to nail down the details, and I’m getting the feeling that manufacturing satisfying craft porn comes down to details, and that the blogs I read (and moon over) are written by women who have the inspiration and the focus to transfer lotion from plastic containers to ribbon-wrapped crystal jars, and then take beautifully lit photographs for posterity.
That’s not me. I’ve knit socks based off cartoon characters, I wear tattered Chuck Taylors and I will always have frizzy hair.
That’s why it’s called “D’oh!Mestic.” I’m going to get it wrong. Really wrong. Really, really wrong. But it’s mine, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll start to get it right. Maybe someday, I’ll live in the craftsman bungalow with a writing room perfectly color-coordinated, a kitchen full of beautiful, mismatched settings, a garden, flowers in every room and a better understanding of what it takes.
Until then, I’m going to figure it out, make mistakes and swear a fucking lot.