It pains me to start with a correction but I would not be a responsible newsletter sender if I did not address this. After receiving thousands and thousands of emails, phone calls and handwritten letters in cursive, it has been brought to my attention that I incorrectly numbered my newsletters. Two newsletters in a row I titled as being the “8th” which upended the Lizardbreath cinematic universe. I am here to apologize for this terrifying oversight and I have course corrected the numbering. This is my 11th letter, I can safely guarantee that.
Thank you to all that reached out* to rectify this horror, now onto the 11th newsletter! (*No one reached out and for that I am grateful.)
Last weekend my friend gifted me her lovely but kid stained West Elm couch. It came in three parts that proved harder to fit through my apartment door than the one long part couch we already owned. Luckily we traded some guys their muscle for our old couch that still looked great minus some cat scratches. The stains on the new couch allowed me to finally try out the laundry stripping TikTok trend and I am happy to report- it works! I also bought one of those fabric pill shavers from TikTok and happy to report- it works too! I have learned more on TikTok in two months than in 34 years of school and life experience. Anyway the couch has allowed me to tick off the Ikea to West Elm transition part of my thirties and I have given it the title “perfect spot to have a Sunday morning hangover.”
The former couch didn’t have an ottoman and since this was a more bloated version of that couch, it meant our living room layout needed a refresh as well. One thing my roommate and I have excelled at during the pandemic is adding places to sit in our apartment. At the beginning of quarantine we had a couch that could squeeze 3, two armchairs and a Eames chair dupe. The eating area had three more spots: two bar stools and my computer chair. So at any point the two of us had 9 options to sit. One day on a run I came across two beautiful but rust stained chairs sitting on the street corner. They were coupled with a few other pieces of ratty furniture so I wasn’t entirely sure if this was free or if movers were about to pull around the corner. Finally I cornered a man who told me I could have them so my roommate and I carried these very well rusted chairs three blocks to our apartment. I was positive I could Internet sleuth my way to getting the decades worth of dust off (unfortunately this was before my TikTok obsession). Sure enough after ruining one cleaning brush and multiple rag, I accomplished my goal. I would later look up the value of the chairs and find they sell for about $800 a piece. Two other great pieces I have acquired from running: my rattan bedside table and a bench I use in my room that might actually be a coffee table. Also whatever this weird thing is that I am in love with.
Having most of my furniture finds come from the street is a phase I thought would be in the past by 34. Street furniture to me is reminiscent of being 17 and thinking bringing home a “Sidewalk Closed” sign is cool. The first piece of furniture I found on a sidewalk came my senior year of college. It was an ugly lazy-boy and I lived on the second floor of my building. But I was just drawn to getting this weathered chair into my possession. I forced my roommate to help me bring it up our narrow staircase and we plopped it in a corner and immediately draped it with a patterned Urban Outfitters sheet. The chair was super comfortable and ended up being everyone’s favorite place to sit and I kept it for two more moves. I even returned it to the same sidewalk I had adopted it from when it’s life cycle in my life was complete.
I remember the time leading up to getting that chair was rough for me because I was in my senior year of college and texting with a future worship pastor. The chair’s significance was the reminder that I can do anything and I do not need anyone to help me especially because the worship pastor had stopped texting me. Hauling it up the stairs seemed impossible at first but my roommate and I were more than determined to gain this inspirational win (my roommate was also texting with a future youth pastor).
The chair’s unsightliness was overshadowed by the message “you can do it all” because at 21 I thought I was too old to attain anything. I went to Christian college and this was engagement season, the coveted “ring by spring” Christian college guarantee. I kept the chair when I had to move mid-year into a slightly bigger but haunted apartment as a reminder that my better days were not behind me. It would get new life in the corner of my huge bedroom, still dressed in the Urban Outfitters sheet, becoming the catch all chair that I rarely sat in. Shoes, outfits, books and various bags would haphazardly be thrown on top and once every few weeks I would pare it down while listening to Death Cab for Cutie.
I remember when the time had come to get rid of the chair I was ready to send it back to it’s sidewalk. I had decided to finally move to LA and was ready to become a full fledged adult at the elderly age of 23. I wore Ann Taylor Loft blazers, wore nice perfume and drank wine that wasn’t sweet. The chair was my fleeting youth and I was ready to begin collecting the wares of adulthood as I traveled across the country to lock down a 401K (ten years later and I still have nothing locked down hehe).
Then a few years ago I came across an odd shaped credenza on a walk with a friend. The color was a shade darker than my aesthetic but the build was very cool. It fit nicely into my small Los Feliz bedroom and I had clocked it as a future house project for an apartment where I had more leverage with the decor. The apartment I lived in at the time consisted of three roommates and three pets and we all mainly stuck to our separate spaces. Once I moved to an apartment where I could watch TV in the living room, I was ready for this weirdly shaped credenza to make a home. I knew it needed a new stain job and I had dreams of putting a cool design on the doors that never stayed on their tracks. I had a sneaky suspicion my roommate hated it, but to her credit she never outright said anything. She just always suggested keeping it in corners that weren’t in eye line and we decorated it with thrifted tchotchkes that spruced it up. However with the recent addition of the three part West Elm couch, one piece of furniture needed to go. I knew immediately it would be this credenza. I knew it looked weird, I knew the space would open up without it and I knew the little tchotchkes could easily be re-homed elsewhere. Also I knew it was my roommate’s perfect chance to finally rid our environment of this street find.
I didn't want to let go of it, not because I liked it, but because I didn't want to let go of it’s possibility. To me it was a reminder of something nice to come, which was a shining new paint job I would absolutely get to, eventually, once I had the time, which would be soon- I promise! I could go deep here and say something like it’s ugliness demonstrated to me a willingness to be pretty, something I struggle with internally… but truthfully it just was something that had good bones but didn’t quite fit the aesthetic in the end. I know a lot of the time I do fall in love with the possibility of something over the reality of what is actually happening, but assigning that much meaning to this credenza feels cheap (I save that for the five conversations I have with men over Hinge who ultimately ghost me). As far as life lessons go, this was a casual one that I could see coming and embraced it as I comfortably watched The Bachelor from my stain free West Elm couch.
I will add in the lesson department that I forget giving something up also frees you up. I really love what our living room has turned into as a result of the subtraction of the credenza. Even though there’s less room to move around, there’s a lot more room to breathe. The possibility the credenza held has now been transferred to the couch space giving possibility to future movie nights and a space that is absolutely prime for a book club meetup. We put our Eames chair dupe in a corner by the window and I can now see out into Highland Park better than ever with an incoming breeze hitting my face at the perfect angle. Our two armchairs have rotated allowing us a new view out a window that we never could look out of cause all our chairs were focused on the TV. Our sit count now stands at the aesthetically pleasing number 11 (which is how many newsletter I have written!!).
I can’t wait to host people in my apartment with our double digit sit count and that doesn’t even include the outside sit count that has also reached max porch capacity. Excuse me… I wrote that last sentence one day before the earth shattering revelation from my landlord that he is building out our deck so we are about to lose our goddamn minds on porch furniture. The only downside to this sit count is the intersection of my cat’s claws and the couch, but we draped some blankets over the edges till we can figure out a better solution. In the end, I like sitting on my couch more than I liked thinking about my credenza and I just hope someone else Pinterests the shit out of it or it finally can be laid to rest in the proper trash cans.
re: what’s going on
I recently read the book “U Up?” by my friend Catie Disabato and it’s the type of book you immediately want to read again. It’s a fiction that takes place in LA that details a lot of the best bars I miss so much. I cannot believe it’s almost been a full year since I have touched a bar and I miss putting on an outfit to see friends and take photobooths.
My new Sunday night tradition is watching Stanley Tucci eat in Italy. I just need to recommend that.
I don’t have 5 things this week because I am currently in a feature writing class taking up… my entire time. This newsletter was supposed to be published last week to stick with my two week rule, but for once during this pandemic I feel oddly busy. So I will end here and say maybe see you in two weeks but most likely probably three. It’s my newsletter, I get to make the rules and I will confirm for the last time this is the 11th newsletter!
Time for an update!
Rip special credenza that now lives in our walkway