Bachelor on the verge of a nervous breakdown, shopping for a new chair

These past couple weeks have not been good.  I’ve had trouble sleeping, bouts of anxiety, some real depression.  All over this 36” x 36” spot in my living room, where a chair used to be.

If you follow my blog, I recently bought and returned a $1,000 leather chair from Wayfair, to replace an old brown chair from Target that was in my living room 4 years too long.

The new leather chair was stylish & well made, but didn’t have enough back support and was too orange.  For a thousand dollars, I expected (and deserved) a lot more from that chair.

My friend Danielle suggested I visit La-Z-Boy’s online site and shop there for something more traditional—plus they’d send me free swatches.

They have a wide selection of fabrics, but YOU CAN ONLY REQUEST 3 SWATCHES TOTAL and must allow 3 weeks for them to be mailed to you.  To be honest, I didn’t like their chairs anyway.  Either too feminine with their long chair legs, or too stuffy.  I wanted something a little more minimal, a little more modern.

I have it down to three chairs that range in price from $227.00 to $1200.00.  I’m pretty partial to one, but I’d be interested in a second opinion.

1.  Marin Chair from West Elm – $999.00 (plus 200.00 more for taxes & shipping)

PROS:  At 32” high, 31” wide & 38” deep it’s just the right size for that space.  I like it’s boxy style, no “flourishes”.  West Elm sent me a generous supply of swatches (16 total) and I selected two, “Camel Twill” & “Camel Performance Twill”.

CONS:  It’s very… conventional, like it belongs to a 3 piece set.  It’s also very high priced.  And since it’s made to order, I was told it’d be 8 weeks minimum. 

Also, you’re warned before placing the order: “Are you absolutely sure?  This custom order cannot be canceled, and the item may not be returned.”  And finally… my place already has a lot of tans & browns.  Do I want to add more?

2.  Deeann Chair from Wayfair – $229.99 (plus free shipping)

PROS:  It’s the cheapest of the three, it has a ‘guy look’ I’m drawn to and looks easy enough to take care of.  It will fill in that empty space in here.

CONS:  It’s very “bachelory” and it feels bachelor enough in here already.  Also, I have a black leather ottoman in storage I’m planning to use as a coffee table, and I don’t want more than one leather piece in here (even if this is faux leather).  

3.  McRae Chair from Joss & Main – $720.00 (plus free shipping)

PROS:  These pillow-top chairs have been VERY popular for a couple years now.  This has 80 reviews, each one praising it’s comfort and style.  I like the minimalist black iron frame that suspends the cushion; it has a relaxed, artsy look. 

The ‘washed white’ canvas would allow me to add colors to it I wanted.  Here’s 2 lumbar pillows I’d purchase with it to “earthify” or jazz it up some.

CONS:  It’s so white (ivory)!  Would it work in here?  Would it be masculine enough?  Would it be too much a contrast to everything else? 

My couch is dark blue, but has an ivory throw on it.  There’s a lot of ivory trim in the apartment as well.

Well, that’s it.  I’m partial to the last one, it’s different and I like that.  But I’m at the point where I’d settle for this.

 

How one woman did so much with so little is beyond me… Happy Birthday, Mom

On this date, August 7, 1940 my mom was born.  Her full name was Linda Beryl Morris and she died in 2004, a few months after turning 64. 

Happy Birthday Mom, you would’ve and should’ve been 82 today.

This is her sometime around 1973, on her way to work at Fisher’s Big Wheel.  It was our small town’s first “real department store” that opened just a year prior.  Mom worked at Fisher’s full-time from 1972 to 1997, while raising 6 kids. 

I can still remember the week this store opened, Mom going in and asking for an application.  That night at dinner, Dad made a joke about “no woman of his was gonna work outside the home if he could help it”.  But when it came to lean times and coal miners strikes, birthdays & Christmases and us kids needing new shoes and school clothes and a hundred other things, that was all her. 

Mom spent so little on herself, she was the most unselfish person I’ve ever known.

I really don’t have a lot to say here that hasn’t been said before.  Last night while looking through my meager collection of Mom photos (she hated having her picture taken) I did a “Mom” search on my blog to see what pictures of her I’d already used, and was surprised at all the posts written about her over the years.  I hope one more is okay.

I thought I’d share this small example of who my mom was.  In November 2002, not quite two years after Dad passed, I went down to stay with her a few days for Thanksgiving.  (My sister Shawn was hosting our holiday dinner at her house.) 

Mom was showing me some of the recent home improvements she’d made, and I noticed a copper-metal sun hanging on her kitchen wall.  When I asked where she’d gotten it, she said at a yard sale, it had been almost black with grease. 

When I said it looked cool, she told me to take it home with me.  I laughed and said “Of course not!  Mom you don’t have to give something away just because someone likes it!”   She asked me if I was sure I didn’t want it and I said yes, positively.  It looked perfect where it was.

When I returned to Pittsburgh 2-3 days later and was unpacking my things, the copper metal sun was hidden down in one of my bags, wrapped in newspaper—with toilet tissue taped around each of the sun’s spires.

It’s hung on three kitchen walls of mine since—and always will.  I love you, Mom.

 

Magazine subscriptions in 2022: The good, the bad and the ugly

Look what I got in the mail yesterday.  I was coming into my apt building, Jim the Mailman was in the lobby, said here y’go Doug and handed me a yellow manila envelope. 

When I opened it and looked inside, I did a little tippy-toe dance right there.

It’s a new Star Trek magazine, the first one in several years.  When I heard about it six months ago, the first two issues had already come out and the publisher said there was only a 50/50 chance the magazine would continue. 

I ordered a 6 issue subscription anyway and completely forgot about it.   

Anyway, this is the only magazine I now subscribe to.  Back in the 1980s-1990s, in my “playboy bachelor” days, I subscribed to several and always had a spread of magazines on my coffee table—Playboy, GQ, Omni, Esquire.  My sister used to visit on the weekends, she once told me I had the best “waiting room” because of all the reading material available.

This magazine makes me feel like I’m 15 years old in 1977 again, getting my first issue in the mail of Starlog Magazine.  The lead story then was “Star Trek Plans Big Comeback” and it’s pretty much the same one 45 years later!

And now a word about the bad…

        

A couple weeks ago I got this postcard in the mail from Reader’s Digest.  They wanted to thank me for my order, and since they didn’t quite get my payment information, no worries!  They’d send an invoice out after the first issue.

I never placed a subscription order with Reader’s Digest.

I called RD and politely told them I made no such order.  Juanita (very friendly, very outgoing) said these kind of things didn’t just happen on their own, could it have been my wife or partner?  I told her I was unmarried and single.  She asked if anyone else lived in the house.  For real, Juanita?  That’s none of your beeswax!

I told Juanita I’ve lived on my own since the ‘80s.  She said she was just trying to solve the mystery and in the meantime, enjoy the magazine.  I said thanks, but if I got an invoice I was throwing it away. 

And now a word about the ugly…

Last October I wrote a blog about how desperate TV Guide had gotten—I had a one year subscription with them which ended in 2021 and I didn’t renew.  Seeing how I got rid of my cable months earlier and watch ZERO prime-time television, it wasn’t needed.  

(Along with the fact they were trying to get me to pay $60 for another year, not the $15 I paid before.)

Anyway, TV Guide wouldn’t stop—they sent me a 4th request to renew, a 5th, 6th, 7th… I stopped counting after a dozen.

It took 6 months, but eventually I stopped hearing from them.  And then last week I got this “free” TV Guide in the mail.

It included a postcard that said DOUGLAS—JUST WANTED YOU TO SEE WHAT YOU’VE BEEN MISSING.