‘The crucial importance of a room of one’s own’
What with fun City events like birthday parties and opera performances and colonoscopies, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Ken & Barbie House. I was there digging its leafy wallpaper and garden views all last week, in fact.
Me, snuggling into a birthday gift amidst the leafy wallpaper
It’s less than 500 scare feet, but this clever little hideaway has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. When I get a chance to show it off, like the other day when I ran into Barbara and Danielle and Ann (hi neighbors!) in the lobby, I often point out that I am awfully glad the place, though small, is not a studio.
K & B floor plan. We still have each and every one of those precious walls
“Here’s my husband’s room,” I say, “and here’s mine.” Oddly (or maybe not so oddly), if my guest is a woman — a woman who has been married for at least ten years or so — she never suggests “knocking down that wall to join the bedrooms.” Oh no. She just smiles and nods. Maybe looks a tad wistful.
-
- Our K&B Christmas Tree
-
- Why we can get away with such a teensy tree
-
- The view of “our” tree from our windows
“If The Dude and I had to live in a one-room studio, he’d be dead and I’d be in jail.” is my comment while sliding open the pocket door leading to my private little lair.
Added perk of a room of your own: any light fixture your little heart desires
Oh, it’s not that I don’t absolutely adore Dude Man. I do, I really do. And he is, actually, quite easy to get along with. For a man.
Look! He’s even pals with TR. (Note companionable man-spreading)
But there’s something about a man — a man “around the house,” as they say — that is just not, well, peaceful. Continue reading