Some of my favorite things

Sometimes, you can tell a lot about a person by what objects they collect/display in their home.  How many of you, when you visit someone's house for the first time, the instant you are left alone make a bee-line for the bookcase or the CD/DVD rack to see what your friend reads/listens to/watches?  Come on, I can't be the only snoop around here.

So, this blog is a bit of a self-confessional in which I'll share some of my favorite things with the readers of AnD.  Hopefully, the experience will be enlightening, entertaining, amusing, or a spur for others to come forward and share some of their secrets with us.  Without further ado....

Command Central.  This is where I sit and compose all these witty blogs I post on AnD, all those long, long, long emails I send to friends, where I edit my poetry (I still write that by hand) and where I have taken up editing my novel once again.  I think that is a version of my latest poem there on the copy stand.

This is the other half of command central.  About 6 feet behind my computer chair is my desk.  As you can see from the condition, I don't do much work there anymore.  I recently bought a shredder to take care of some of the pile of paid bills and other "official" paperwork lying around.  Now I just need to make time to fire up that shredder and clear off my other work space.  Sigh.

Next, some of the art that covers the walls of my home.

I wish I could tell you who created this fine art print, but it was a present from a friend, and he died last summer, so, unless I can find the artist's signature, I am afraid it will always remain a mystery.

This is a fine art reproduction of Utamuro's famous shunga print of two lovers.  It hangs, proudly, I might add, over the bed.

This Indian painting of Krishna and the Gopis, by an anonymous Indian folk artist, hangs over the media center in the living room.  I searched for a picture like this one for 5 years before I finally stumbled across this painting in an Indian clothing shop in a nearby city.

I collected these plates on various trips to Spain between 1996 and 2000.  Each plate is from a different town and represents a different ceramic style.  Although all are modern, they reproduce the most characteristic style of their area.  Some of the designs date back to around 800 A.D.

We also have plates from other regions.  This is an Ottoman Iznik-style plate.  Sadly, a repro; all of the originals are in musuems.

In addition to ceramics from various parts of the world, we also have several oriental carpets.  This is a nineteenth century Anatolian Turkish pile weave carpet that has pride of place in the living room.

This is an Afghani pile weave prayer rug that is hung on the wall opposite the front door.  It was probably woven in the 1970s or 80s, but I'm not sure.

This is an Azerbaijani flatweave that is in the library.  It probably dates to the 1880s, though I'm not certain about that.  (A Turkish-American friend of ours used to have a rug shop and traveled extensively in Turkey and Azerbijan, so we found some great rugs through him.)

This is a flatweave trial piece that was woven by a nomadic tribal group in Iran.  It is modern.  The tree of life in the center is characteristic of many Iranian tribal pieces.  This hangs above the couch and directly across from the Krishna and the Gopis painting.

We also use a lot of mirror as decoration.  This grouping is from the bedroom.  They were all cheap, but put a few cheap mirrors in a dark corner and you've made a decorating statement!

Now on to some of my passions.

Personal adornment--that is, clothes, jewelry, shoes, and make-up.  Guys, feel free to skip over this part if you think its too girlie for you.  I get serious again, I promise!

When we moved into this house, we noticed that the closets were woefully small.  So, my husband, who is a carpenter and designer, transformed one of the bedrooms into a walk in dressing room.  This is one corner of the dressing room, with its dressers, shelving and racks for hanging some of my tops.  Sadly, after only 7 years, I am running out of space.  I think it is time to edit my wardrobe in a big way.

Did I mention jewelry?  This is a wall rack that holds my collection of necklaces.  The rack was designed, built and installed by my resident carpenter.

The same carpenter, designer husband built the shoe rack that stands opposite the front door (underneath the Afghan prayer rug).  Just a few of the many shoes I own.  (I think my hasband has managed to squeeze in 3 pairs of his shoes, the rest are mine, all mine.

Now on to the more "worthy" pursuits evident in my abode.  We have a media closet off the living room in which carpenter/designer husband installed floor-to-ceiling shelves to hold some of my collection of CDs, DVDs and video tapes.  (Yeah, remember video tapes?  I have a lot of irreplacable flamenco videos.)  The closet is so narrow and the shelves so tall, you are only seeing the lower half.  The upper half is all CDs.  What sort of CDs?  Mostly flamenco, classical music and World Music (i.e., all the good popular music the rest of the world makes that isn't sung in English).

But there is more!

Since falling hard for Leslie Cheung, I have begun my collection of Leslie/Hong Kong/Asian DVDs.  I've also got all of Leslie's original albums on CD and even a few compilations.  The overflow from my other CD collection has also made its way into this cabinet.  I've managed to fill it up in less than 6 months.  Like my clothing, I think its time to perform a major edit.  Except, every time I think I can get rid of something, I end up using it in a research project or for something I'm writing.

And this is why there isn't any more room for more media cabinets.

These bookcases are in the library.  We also have book cases and shelves in the living room and my office.  Books are everywhere (I think the illness is called something like bibliomania).  At the present moment, I am reading 2 or 3 (or more?) books.  I just returned from a trip, and bought 2 more books.  I keep taking books to the used bookstore, but somehow I always manage to buy more books.  It is an illness, it is incurable.  Maybe there is a twelve step program for people like me?  I once went 2 years without buying a single book.  I thought I was going to die!

I also have other, some would say healthier interests.  Here is a very small sample of my teaware collection.  Nothing is terribly rare or expensive, which is a good thing as I have a tendency to use and hence break my teaware.  The pendant of this ceramic collection is the collection of tea itself.  Since it is just a collection of cannisters that hold a selection of fine tea (not usually what the label on the side says anymore), I'll spare you a picture of the cannisters or, even worse, piles of dried tea leaves displayed on white paper for everyone to admire (while they try not to yawn).  I've learned the hard way--there are tea connoisseurs and then there is 99% of the world's population.  If you love tea, you know who you are.  If you really could care less, don't worry, this blog is moving on.

Finally, I want to share a few items that, while they may not be expensive or even rare, mean a great deal to me.

This bracelet is composed of antique bone mahjong tiles.  Nothing fancy, nothing expensive, but I love the quirkiness of this bracelet.  Those who know what mahjong is are intrigued.  The rest are curious about the bracelet for its exotic appearance (at least here in the US).  It is probably the piece of jewelry I have the most fun wearing.

This emperor and empress origami pair was a gift from an American friend who learned how to fold them the year she lived in Japan teaching English 25 years ago.  I was honored to receive these as a gift and my husband (I think there is a definite theme here) created the little display box with the shoji screen back (with real ricepaper).   It hangs on the wall in a place of honor in our living room.  The figures are becoming a bit faded and dusty after 25 years, but they are a dear reminder of a friend who moved to another part of the country over 20 years ago.

This bracelet is another lovely gift and momento of a dear friend.  Whenever I wear it (and I am wearing it as I write this blog) I remember this special friend.  Love you dear!

The show is over, at least for today.  I hope you have been amused, entertained, enlightened, just hopefully not bored.  Material goods come and go in and out of my life, ebbing and flowing with time.  I love these things because of what they mean to me in a very personal way or the enjoyment or beauty they add to my day-to-day existence.  If there is such a thing as spiritual materialism, then maybe I'm a spiritual materialist.  I hope you'll join me for futher magical mystery tours in the future.  Good-bye, for now.