Narcissiste

A designer friend and I were talking about her latest rash of clients. She says they are singularly difficult to deal with and she wasn't sure why. In some cases, they had been badly burned by previous contractors (losing $140K which goes to show you how much money these people are pouring into their homes, but I digress). In other cases, they were bitten by the DIY bug -- even cardiologists with insanely busy practices thought they could take on the role of contractor to save some money. That's like a contractor saying he's going to operate on himself when he develops heart disease. The other reason is that this is a narcissistic culture, and one of the defining symptoms of narcissism is to think the latest thing is the greatest. (Look at the love affair with Obama, and how they're slamming the poor guy now in spite of some very real and positive moves; look at the landslide with Ford, and one can only hope Toronto will wake up without a hangover on that decision... but I digress again). So back to the clients -- they fall madly in love with this designer or that, they must have that new kitchen no matter what, it's the only thing that will make them happy (narcissists also seem to be addicted to the new thing to relieve their deep seated unhappiness). But when the new begins to demonstrate it or they have feet of clay, they quickly get dashed to the ground, demonized for having failed the unrealistically high expectations.

When one part of any relationship -- between client and contractor, people and president, man and woman -- has these narcissistic expectations that the other will solve ALL their problems, it's doomed. In the case of the cardiologist cum contractor, my friend decided to walk away. Trust your gut, walk away.

The Diet of Real Food

Since it's January, and we're all gung-ho on being healthier, you can see a lot of ink spilled over the latest diets, so it was with great interest -- and a whole lot of relief -- that I spotted a review of two books on food, telling us, basically, that we need to eat food.

Duh, you say, of course we eat food. But these books, The Myths, Misconceptions and Truths about the Foods We Eat, by Joe Schwarcz and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan, are loudly proclaiming that all these latest fad diets of super-omega-3-rich diets, and so on with their obsessive calculations of carbs, versus proteins, versus calories, and so on are not to be listened to.

Hallelujah is all I can say! They're basically saying get a wide variety of fruits and veg, and avoid the next greatest mega-whatever that comes around the bend. The reviewer says "nutritional science is essentially about as advanced as nuclear physics was in pre-industrial Europe."

Daily Ablutions

It's no secret to the people nearest and dearest to me that I must, in order to pay the grocery and orthodontic bill, write stories about the interior design of model homes and condo suites. Occasionally, a truly spectacular building -- low rise home, or condo project -- will come along. But for the most part, these are dreary creations, often with gratuitous embellisments meant to make the place look pretty. That's the architecture.

And then there's the interior design. If you can call it that. The subdivision homes are the worst by far. They have endless hallways and staircases, which consume about a third of the square footage, and then there are the double height ceilings in the formal living room.

I can't, of course, slam this stuff, because I'd never write again in this town. But you can't imagine what I'm thinking while waxing cheesy poetic from my keyboard.

Today, for example, I had to extol the virtues of very high end spa baths and gourmand kitchens. First of all, nobody has the time to luxuriate in that spa, nor to rustle up delicious vittles in that fancy kitchen with its two wall ovens, two sinks (one for washing lettuce!) and stainless steel fridge with glass doors -- only neatniks need apply, since every fingerprint shows up here.

Secondly, how much more retreating from the public sphere are we going to do? At least if you belong to a gym and go to the spa, there's a communal sense to it. You can even take a friend along. But can you imagine inviting a friend to join you in your bathroom, no matter how nice it is?

If you play out the scenario, there you are in terrycloth robes lounging away, perhaps even leaning up against the bidet or the commode. For heaven's sakes, who can relax, up close and personal, next to the "seat" of ablutions?

Most of the women I know are so busy that they take those precious few moments of their uninterrupted shower time to scrub out the tub. Like me, they've even got the sequence of rituals down to such a fine art so that they can shave a leg with one hand, while squeegeeing the walls with the other, as they wait for the conditioner to set. The only quandry is whether to wash it all off before hauling out the industrial size Vim or after. The advantage of the latter is that they can scrub the tub bottom with the soles of their feet slathered with Ajax cleanser -- and so save the high price of a pedicure and pumice stone treatment.

On Being Inoffensive

I've just finished reading a great book on writing, by Sol Stein. His last chapter talks about the writer as shill, the one who will write inoffensive pap in order to put food on the table, or in my case to pay the orthodontic bills so that my kids will have a perfect, even set of choppers.

This leads to what I write in order to pay said doc. I write decorating stories about model homes and model suites -- those lovely little airless vignettes intended to dictate to the consumer what an interior should look like. The mantra should read like a William Morris anti-statement: I will have nothing interesting, unusual, beautiful or even remotely functional in my home.

After a year and a half of writing this mindless drivel, I can tell you pretty much that 90% of these builders don't know what it's like to live in the real world. And, incidentally, most of them are men.

You can't imagine how many pictures I get of "lovely" furniture (for the most part, cheap offshore construction, dark stain on particle board with a plastic varnish to give it the durability that will withstand the abuse the public can give out.) If you can unglue your eyes from the arresting decor for a moment, though, you'll notice all the flaws. Like electrical outlets in places they have no business being, and several of them clustered together. These little white squares are jarring on an expanse of builder beige or taupe.

Layouts: formal front living and dining rooms pay lip service to the name and function of these spaces. In reality, they look more like doctor's waiting rooms, uncomfortably crammed into the small space beside the door.

Corridors, Scarlet O'Hara staircases, double height ceilings with no sense of proportion or scale, eat up a goodly portion of these monstrous homes, so that if you parse it down to room sizes, it's clear that these subdivision homes have precious little more room than a standard three-bedroom semi in the heart of the city.

OK, that's enough for now. I will continue my rant anon.