baggage's Diaryland Diary

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Love Seats and the Politics of Romance

The whole concept of a love seat has always turned me on.

We have dining room chairs for dining, sleeping bags for sleeping, picnic tables for picnicking and, well, I guess we have love seats for loving.

A whole seat dedicated to the concept and act of love? Very nice. Very sexy.

So Sunday my GF and I set out to Laguna Beach on a mission: to find a perfect sofa built for two. For all intensive purposes, a love seat.

It's not as easy as you may think. There are tons of sofas built for three. There are lots of recliners that can accommodate one comfortably. But, a seat just big enough for two? Ahh, it's just not that simple.

It had to be a certain width cuz we just don't have much room in our two bedroom home ( a sofa would be way too big, a recliner would be too small). It had to be overstuffed cuz my GF loves overstuffed furniture. It had to be the kind of seat you could pull your legs up on, and curl up while watching a movie or reading a book. It had to be a certain shade of tan or green to match the newly painted walls.

It had to be perfect.

To be brutally honest, what I really wanted was a CD holder to hold my ever growing collection of 900+ CDs. The love seat is her department, the CDs are mine. My GF, to put it mildly, is extremely picky about her furniture. I simply didn't think we would ever find the seat of her dreams. For the past three years we've owned our home, I had resigned myself to sitting on the floor every time I wanted to watch TV (fortunately, I�m not a huge TV fan, and rarely ever watch it. Still, it would be nice to to plant my behind on something other than the hardwood floor when the lure of the tube overcomes).

I had high hopes for my CD holder. The love seat? That probably wouldn't happen today.

So imagine my reaction when, while wandering in a store off of Pacific Coast Highway, I turn an aisle corner and see my GF laying in a light tan, overstuffed, sofa. The sofa seemed a tad too big for one person, and a tad too small for three. It was overstuffed. And, judging from the way she was sprawled upon it, was just the right size for the kind of leg-curling she wanted to do.

She motioned me over to try it out. It fit two people. You had to sit close, but not so close that you would be uncomfortable.

She had found The Love Seat.

This Love Seat was also deep for a two-seater. The width was fine, but the depth? The damn thing would extend out to the center of our tiny bedroom. And it had these weird-ass orbs tracing the edges of the arms and sides. It was, well, not quite ugly. It just looked odd (the fact that it had been marked down from an astronomical price told me it had been in the store too long. Obviously others out there found the chair�s looks as odd as I did). And, even with the markdown, this monster-love-seat-with-the-weird-orbs was damn expensive.

I asked her if she wanted it. And she said, yes, but, we could "look further if I wanted to." Hmmm�if �I� wanted to. It was up to me. She had skillfully put the ball in my court despite the fact that she was salivating over this monster-love-seat-with-the-weird-orbs. This is one of my GF's little personality quirks. She will never tell me outright what she really wants. She'll say, "we can watch that movie if you want to." Or, "I wouldn't mind eating there if you like." She'll always leave it up to me. I failed this test once or twice before, but I've come to recognize the drill. There are a FEW things you learn after being together for 12 years.

Ten minutes later, we were trying to stuff the monster-love-seat-with-the-weird-orbs into my truck and realized that it wouldn't fit.

That is, unless we jettisoned the CD holder...the perfect CD holder I had found and paid for two hours earlier; the one that would fit perfectly into the 18-inch wide space next to my G4, the one that would organize my musical and digital life into categories so neat that I could locate any, I repeat, any CD in a matter of seconds. Tori? She'll be in the top drawer, upper right next to Dar. Rush? They would go in the third drawer next to Dream Theater and Steve Vai. Fastball? They would be living in the second drawer next to Train and Travis. Descent 3? Right down here next to Tomb Raider and Asteroids.

So, I ask the lady in the rustic furniture store if she could hold my CD drawer till next week. I put it back into its corner, go out into the alley way, and stuff the-monster-love-seat-with-the-weird-orbs down my throat and into my truck.

Once home, we carry it into the house, plop it down onto its spot, sit down, and curl our legs up. My GF happily suggests "Roman Holiday" for monster-love-seat's maiden voyage.

My legs scrape against those weird-ass orbs, but halfway through the movie (right when Audrey Hepburn is being chased by the guards), I get used to the feeling. My GF and I sit close for the movie's two hours, and enjoy the flick in silence even though we know every scene word for word.

Just before Audrey gets out of the car and returns to her palace (a GREAT scene by the way), I notice that my GF has fallen asleep. I know that I'm a bigger fan of Roman Holiday and Audrey Hepburn than she ever will be. Still, my GF watches the movie with me. And, she almost always crashes before the end.

I was wondering if I should wake her for the ending, but decide to let her sleep longer on her new chair.

Monster-love-seat is pretty comfy, I decide. I think I'll get used to it.

Even with those weird-ass orbs.

02:12:26 - 2000-10-25

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