I Know This Much Is True: A Meme

Several months ago I saw an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians in which Rob Kardashian's behavior disturbed me so much (he claimed to want to start a clothing line but then showed up at his first investor's meeting unshaven, unshowered and in sweatpants) that I wrote him a snail mail letter.  Sabina and Agatha had watched the episode with me and were speechless with horror as their mother wrote this letter, mailed it to Rob care of Dash in Calabasas, and in all seriousness, expected it to be read and answered.  I'll never know if it was read, but it probably comes as no shock  to you that I have not heard back from young Rob.

In that post where I said I knew where Lebanon was?  I do know, but only because when I decided to use that as an example of an important piece of information, I asked Sabina where it was.

I liked the movie Nights in Rodanthe: in fact, I own it.

You knew about the Noro Silk Garden addiction, but I don't think I've shown you my Kureyon hoard (stash is no longer the correct term).  Here's a photo of the skeins that are pose-worthy.

I want to knit a coverlet with no pattern in mind: just knit some rectangles and squares, pick up a bunch of stitches at various stations and then see what happens.  This probably isn't the best plan.  It seems that all of the most lovely, unstudied blankets are the result of following careful patterns with lots of skein-switching to prevent "pooling."  Kind of like how it can take a lot of make-up to achieve the natural look.  The word organic comes to mind.  I want to create the afghan organically, with each step being chosen based on the steps preceding it.

But the word organic, like the word green, has become a political term -- yet another adjective to inspire guilt.  I rarely eat "organic," nor am I a locavore.  Perversely, I occasionally like to eat a grapefruit.  In February.  In Northbrook.  My dogs (who are not rescues and did not come from a shelter) don't eat organic food, either.  So many things I'm doing wrong, and all without leaving the house!

I can hear my dad's voice in my head: he liked to rile outdoorsy colleagues by saying things like, "Wilderness is just land that a developer has found to have no value."  You tell 'em, OFD.

I turn to LB, who is next to me on the couch watching futbol and say, "I truly resent what's happened to the word organic." 

LB's heard this rant before, so he pats my knee and says, "You take care of all the big problems.  I'll just keep going to work."

LB subscribes to The Wall Street Journal.  I have no interest in this periodical whatsoever, except for the glossy "WSJ" magazine that arrives once a month.  This I examine from cover to cover because I really must know what Donatella Versace eats for breakfast and whether or not Diana Vreeland was a good mother. 

The September issue has a photo that haunts me:

Usually I'm just happy to look at all the pretty expensive things I'll never own, but this time I want to step inside the picture.  I want to live in this photo in my alternate universe. 

Maybe it's the pajamas, which the stylist -- brilliantly -- had the model wear and sit down in to ensure a comfy wrinkled appearance.  Or maybe it's the way that drink is perched on the table.  No one will knock it over.  Eventually it will be cleared away, but not by either of these two people.  Or maybe it's the curved doorways that give the room the cocoon-like feel of a sleeper compartment on a train.  The textured walls and patterned ceiling just add to the sense of warmth and safety.

I made the mistake of reading the article, and it raises more questions than it answers.  The woman in the PJ's is the ex-wife of Bryan Ferry.  In fact, they have four children together.  Now she's married to that fellow on the couch, cosseting the whippet. 

How did this happen?  Did she say to herself one day, "Being married to a rock star is fine and all, but what I'd really fancy is a paunchy gent in high-rise pants..."  A short Google search could tell me everything, but more information runs the risk of destroying my enjoyment of the photograph entirely. 

Comments

[Lo]

Cosseting the whippet. I need to engineer some conversation wherein I can use this phrase. Brilliant.

[Mary K. in Rockport]

Those beautiful Noro blankets are a'calling me, too. I acquire skeins of Silk Garden when they're on sale and salt them away until I have enough to make something. I hope I don't die first!

[ccr in MA]

When I read this "more information runs the risk of destroying my enjoyment of the photograph entirely" I knew I had to comment, because you're so right! Wisdom indeed to know that some things, once seen, cannot be unseen. Much better to not know than to know and wish you didn't.

The doorway in that photo makes me think of a biscuit tin. (I am American, but "cookie tin" is not the right phrase.)

[Joan]

I had a whippet. She would have liked to be cosseted.

The paragraph commencing with, "But the word organic ..." may be my favorite thing you've ever written.

[TXC]

I don't know much about that woman, Lucy Helmore, and why and when she and Bryan Ferry divorced (or who her new husband is). To me, a very interesting story concerned what happened with the woman Bryan Ferry was engaged to before Lucy Helmore. But I won't tell it here so as not to impart more information.

[kmkat]

I beg to differ. That photo had to have been taken on a ship. On the paunchy gentleman's yacht, to be specific. And that is why Lucy what's-her-name left the rock star. Paunchy gentleman with yacht (and cosseted whippet) beats rock star every time.

[Miss Susan]

"cosseting a whippet." I am now tasked with the burden of imagining scenarios in which I can work this into a conversation in a breezy manner.

[Tracy]

Whippet notwithstanding, the decor is making me nauseous.......or possibly the movement of the yacht. Move over cossetted whippet, I need a fainting couch to recline uponk

[Beth]

Nights in Rodanthe...very awesome movie.