Unmoved
◊ Usually I scoff at the idea of living in a place that looks like an Ikea catalogue, with bare floors and high ceilings and fresh-cut flowers in bizarre vases made by forward-thinking designers. Everything's stashed in self-consciously simple dressers and cabinets with primary-colored laquered-pine fronts. There's nothing lying around on the floor or super-glued to the wall or hanging haphazardly from thumbtacks, and odds are good that you can make it across the bedroom without dodging piles of comic books.
It all looks so antiseptic, like some cell you'd find in the monastery of the Order of Minimalist Funky Coordinating Decor, whose followers tread the hardwood floors in simple, breezy linens while beating their own backs with handmade rattan whips.
But Christ on a pogo stick, when it's time to move, you'll wish to God or Satan or the Sacred Jumping Bean of Amarillo, Texas that you lived in one of those places. Because when you're staring down four boxes' worth of coats all wrong for the weather outside and piles of pants too fancy for everyday wear and several hundred CDs and DVDs and videos, you will find yourself standing around frantically rubbing the antique oil lamp you never use because it smells funny when it's lit in hopes that a genie will pop out, take out the recycling, box the clothes, sort the books in a way that makes later alphabetization a remote possibility, wash the dishes and pack them so they won't break, attack the nest of wires behind the computer and magic the massive couch down the dangerous stairs along with the queen-size bed that's so big they had to take out part of the doorway to get it upstairs.
And not to mention, box the computer so you won't waste all this valuable time and nice weather by blogging.