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Love and Living Rooms

The only true currency in this bankrupt world…is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.

- Lester Bangs

I got this email from a reader a few days ago – a reader, who, I may add, is most definitely not a NonSociety fan and had emailed me not-so-nice things in the past – that really got me thinking. He wrote: “I like your willingness to see style as an act of creation – trying things out rather than buying them. It speaks deeply to people, I believe…rather than buying something you are emotionally and physically divorced from, you create things that come from within.” And that’s it, really. To me, it’s not about heading to some expensive shop to buy overpriced things for your home…it’s about figuring out what you like, what you want (and what you don’t), and then honoring yourself by confidently and honestly expressing that vision in your home – and in your life.

Take my living room, for example. I absolutely adore it…and I get that not everyone feels the same. Some folks over on RBNS (NonSociety’s hate site, for those of you who don’t know) said that it was messy, ugly, eyeball-searing, whatever…and did that make me sad for a minute? Sure. But then I remembered that before I had taken the picture of my living room to post on my site, I had looked around at the dog toys littering the floor, the coffee mugs on the table, the afghan that’s there not because it’s pretty, but because it keeps my toes warm, and the pile of receipts by the door, and thought about moving them out of the shot…but then I decided not to. Because that’s not the point. I don’t live a perfect, beautiful life straight out of a magazine, and my apartment reflects that. It looks like I live there. Yours probably does, too.

The point isn’t perfection, or even aspiration to some far-off ideal. The point is to shut out the noise for long enough to discover what makes you feel great, and to then to be true to that. It’s just as important to know what you don’t like, what you don’t care about. I could care less about wedding cakes, so we had whoopie pies at our wedding. I like fake flowers, and so I buy them constantly. I also like Britney Spears. And freaking garlic salt; I would bathe in the stuff if I could. If you like something that’s “uncool”…so what? You like it. That’s what matters.

When we were in Aspen, the NonSociety girls talked a lot about this book that they were reading, Marry Him, which basically instructs readers to settle down with the guy that they’re dating if he’s “good enough”…because if they keep waiting for some guy to come along who checks every box on a miles-long checklist, they’ll be waiting forever. I think that’s absolute bullshit for about a million reasons, but mostly because the checklist that women carry around in their heads delineating the exact qualities that their future husband must possess is more often than not a construct based on others’ opinions. The noise that surrounds us on a daily basis (oh, he’s poor, can’t marry him, oh, he’s not cute enough, oh, he didn’t go to an Ivy League, oh, he doesn’t read enough/listen to music enough/go to museums enough) can skew our ability to see what might really matter.

When I met Kendrick, he was a touring musician who on occasion moonlighted as a coconut-water salesman between gigs. You think that checks off a whole lot of boxes on my friends’ “The Boy I’m Gonna Marry” lists? Prooooobably not. But if you limit your ideas about love, you limit your life – trust me on that one. I dated plenty of Checklist Guys before I met Kendrick – and certainly felt pressure to marry them from people in my life. Ultimately, though, I chose to create a family with a man who spun my heart around, rather than one that had the right “credentials.” I silenced all the noise, and chose Kendrick for him.

After I read the comments about my living room – and after the requisite moment of questioning my choices – I sat down, looked around me, and realized that man, I love our home. Our a-bit-too-busy-for-a-busy-space coffee table? A Salvation Army find from when Kendrick and I first got engaged, and my husband’s absolute favorite piece of furniture. The mismatched pillows on the couch? The coziest things ever, and from the bedroom that I grew up in. The dog toys all over the floor? Ugly, half-destroyed things that nevertheless bring constant joy to the two much-adored furballs in my life. Even that messy pile of receipts by the door symbolizes some medical reimbursements that I’m really pretty psyched about, and it makes me happy to look at it. So there.

It’s the same with love and living rooms. You should no more choose a partner in life because he meets your friends’ ideas of perfection than you should pick a lamp because Nate Berkus says to. Listen to yourself. You know what you love. Go get it.

‘Cause that’s cool.



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March 30th, 2010 | Posted by Jordan | Best | 72 Comments »
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  • Julie Siemens

    Not to be in support of the book, but aren't you kinda doing what it's suggesting? If you had been one of the women that wanted a checklist man, you wouldn't have gotten married – and this is NOT at all to say that I think you settled, I mean that you identified what was a priority to your happiness and went after that, which is kinda what the book is about, or at least what the Amazon review says it is.

    Garlic salt…. never something to be apologized for. I would bet you good money that no matter how many cooking classes or fancy schools you attend, you'll still love it, and that's the point of taste buds – to eat what you like.

  • J.J.

    Honestly. . . Julia's in a lot of pain. And you were her friend at one point. So what could have happened? I know everyone is praising you here, but there a ton of jabs at Julia and her current situation here, that maybe not everyone is noticing. But underneath all the sunshine and unicorns, I felt something insidious here, Jordan. I think demonizing Julia is absurd. I doubt she did anything that horrible. You were clearly Step One on her road to breakdown so why not address it? Or privately make ammends? You wouldn't be here blogging without her, obviously.

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  • jordanreid

    You know, I think at heart that might be what the book is saying, but I think the overt message (I mean, the title is “The Case for Settling for Mr. Good-Enough”) is powerful enough that the emphasis on “settling” is what most women are going to take away from it.
    Re: garlic salt – I agree: this love affair will stand the test of time ;)

  • jordanreid

    Yeah, I was a little heavier when I met Kendrick (maybe five pounds? I don't weigh myself, so I couldn't tell you). Maybe my shape changed a bit because when I moved back to NY I began walking all the time? I didn't change my eating habits or anything, so beyond that…don't know. Also, short black bobs that make my face look like a moon and enormous push-up bras aren't particularly flattering on me ;)
    Re: acting pursuits…it's just not a major interest of mine at the moment. I'm totally loving writing and hosting in a way that I never loved acting, and my focus is on seeing where that goes.

  • jordanreid

    I'm so glad that you're with someone who makes you that happy. And my condolences about your cat – I know how hard that is. I'm so sorry.

  • jordanreid

    The post isn't intended to be a “jab” at or “demonize” anyone; it's intended to be a purely honest take on a topic that I feel very strongly about.

  • jordanreid

    i appreciate the support, sincerely :) thank you!

  • allimille

    Jordan- I noticed that you're living room wasn't spotless, and I thought, “How awesome is that! So cute and lived in! She's one of us!” I loved it because of, not in spite of, the fact that it didn't look like it came out of some magazine!

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  • Katie

    Uh, that woman does not deserve any apologies. Don't broadcast your personal secrets, Jules, if you can't deal with the repercussions.

  • http://painjunkie.spaces.live.com/blog/ John R. Durant

    Jordan– I appreciate your perspective. Your comments about “Marry Him” struck a good note with me. I'm glad my wife didn't have an artificial checklist when she met me. For me, she was (and still is after 17 years and 5 kids with one more on the way) my dream girl. We met in college, and she called me up to ask me to go to a Hare Krishna restaurant and have some soup. I fell crazy in love with her, and we were married 5 months after our first date. Later on she told me that she asked me out because she thought I would be interesting and because I was a “safe date”. She didn't expect or particularly want any romance to develop, and that made things relaxed and easy. She had tons of male friends, and they were all tall, handsome, and pretty great guys. I came along as a bald 26 year old 5'7″ guy who made his own loaves of bread each week and studied around the clock. I'm completely sure that very little about me that would fit the checklist most women may have. But, I was happy with who I was and knew what I was about. I had decided long before meeting her that I was sure of three things 1) I would never settle for anything short of real love. 2) I would commit myself entirely and unreservedly to the woman of dreams 3) I would not look for the girl of my dreams. Instead, I would focus on becoming the kind of man that my dream girl would find interesting and appealing.

    I think more men would be a lot happier and make a lot of women happier if they committed themselves to the same three things. It's not about having the best abs (although I've always been very fit, because it's a good thing!), great hair, or the right car. All of that nonsense is about trying to get to some “destination” where hopefully things will suddenly be magically wonderful. It's a mirage. My 17 years of marriage have not been about artificial destinations. It's about a journey and maintaining the commitment no matter what kind of chaos enters the picture. I didn't ask her marry me actually. Instead, I asked, “Will you commit yourselve to learning to love me every day for the rest of your life? Because, that's what I'm offering. I promise to fall in love you with every morning for the rest of your life, no matter what we go through or become.” We've kept our promise. After all this time, she can tell me about what muffin she just ate, and I'm still completely captivated by her every word.

  • holleebecker

    Hi Jordan. I am a 40-year-old suburban housewife. But 12 yrs ago, I was a 28-yr-old newlywed, living on the Upper East Side with my husband in a teeny studio apartment, that I can now describe retroactively as lovingly ramshackle, thanks to you :)

    At the time the husb was a struggling med student with zero income and massive student loans, and I was working as a fashion and beauty editor raking in what couldn't have been more than 20K a year. Our furniture consisted of pieces left by our apartment's previous occupants, combined with a few pieces of my own and a few of the husb's.

    Yes, we now live in a big suburban home, with two kids and a dog, and all the rest of the generic trappings you can imagine go along with it. But not a day goes by that I don't think about our wonderfully free and haphazard years living on top of each other in Apt. 7K. Those memories are a part of the fabric of our story, the thread that's been woven through the journey we've taken and the life we've built together. Sometime we sit up at night, after the kids are asleep, and reminisce about those carefree years. No, you can never get them back in exactly the same way. But the memories are a part of you. And they are what keep you going through the tough times.

    To this day, we keep our old, rickety Ikea bookshelf from our Manhattan apartment in our master bedroom. I can't tell you how many family members have questioned it's existence and scolded me to get rid of it. But I will never part with it. It's a part of me, and a part of us. And cool or not, I wouldn't trade it in for anything in the world.

    :) Keep being who you are… cause it's wonderful

    http://holleewoodworld.tumblr.com

  • jordanreid

    John, I think you'd fit a lot of women's ideas about the perfect man to marry…checklist or no :)

  • jordanreid

    Thank you, Hollee :)
    Even on our hardest days, when the dogs are barking, the apartment is a disaster, and the bills are piling up…I sometimes think ahead to a time when I'll imagine we'll do just what you described: look back and reminisce fondly about the whole thing.
    And that de la Vega cabinet we dragged off the street? It's not going anywhere – mark my words.

  • Jennifer

    This is so awesome. I love it.

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  • Anita

    Amen, sister!

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