Maybe a 3-month hiatus after a post whose title literally translates to “I often think about death” was a little dramatic. In my defense, it was not planned. I was suddenly on an important mission to find a new apartment that we could afford and could fit me, my partner, our cat**, our desks and three closets full of clothes.
[** I can’t add a footnote so I’ll do it this way. Our cat Spencer unfortunately went missing a month before we left our old apartment. Definitely made leaving a painful experience and we were inconsolable for weeks, I still feel like there are moments I can’t really believe he is not around. We miss our boy and we hope he is happy wherever he’s running around now.]
It has now been about a month since we moved in, I celebrated my birthday a week ago and am coming to you (a)live from my new couch. Rested, relaxed and ready to write again.
Having a new place to call “home” is really fun, especially if you have the opportunity to furnish it yourself. It was the only serious request I made to my partner: I didn’t want to be stuck with other people’s stuff again, even if that meant furnishing the place slowly. I didn’t consider that I live with a man who struggles with exercising patience, which is both a huge blessing and a huge pain in the ass. Needless to say we had the apartment furnished, unpacked and ready for guests in a week. 7 days exactly.
We agreed on the aesthetic we wanted for our home really quickly, there wasn’t too much back-and-forth when it came to the furniture. It started getting rough when the time for the smaller things came: vases, frames… and lamps. You would think having an artistically-inclined girlfriend would make someone trust her judgement when it came to such decisions. At least he knows now, after two failed attempts at questioning me, that I am always right.
It was our first IKEA date to buy little things for the new home. We had looked for table lamps everywhere but something always didn’t sit right with me. They weren’t the right shape, the right color, and then suddenly… there they were. The BLÅSVERK lamps stared back at me in their four bright primary colors: green, red, yellow and blue. Modern but retro, futuristic with a hint of playful nostalgia, I needed them all. I pictured them scattered through our large living room, adding a pop of color to our light beige furniture… more importantly without costing an arm and a leg.
Excited, I tell my partner of my vision and he scoffs. “They’re too childish, they won’t look good. Maybe only the red.” I stand my ground. I tell him he will change his mind when he sees the lamps in the room. He insists he won’t. We leave the lamps behind… but I dream of them. I can’t stop talking about the BLÅSVERK lamps for days, so I decide to compromise and agree to only get one color next time we go to IKEA.
The day finally comes and the only colors available are red, yellow and one last blue. We pick up the red, I miss the rest but am satisfied we at least have one. Once we’re home I assemble it and set it on the chest of drawers in our hallway. It’s a perfect match. My partner comes out from the kitchen and takes a look, he says it looks great. Shortly after, he turns to me:
“You were right. We should also get the rest of the colors.”
That didn’t happen. They were all sold out the next day.
I’m not gonna lie to you, these are problems I like having. It’s comforting to me that these are the disagreements that plague us in our relationship — we worked passed our big, basic symbiosis issues a couple years ago. Chores, personal space, organization, we’ve both been tested by each other’s quirks on multiple occasions (and in some areas to the extreme, dealbreaker degree) so now in the new space we’re tweaking little things we’ve already worked on changing. Missing three different-colored cool lamps is much easier than figuring out who does what on a Sunday deep-clean.
Of course our bright red BLÅSVERK is the lamp that has gotten the most compliments in our home from guests and family, so we think of the BLÅSVERKs that got away often. I do anyway. I’ve tried to add other things with similar colors to compensate for their absence because I just know they won’t be available again. Thankfully though, this all has a silver lining: my man has stopped considering any slightly-more-modern design object as “only appropriate for a doctor’s office”, and bright colors do not equal “childish” anymore.
I’d call that progress.
your friendly film person :) 
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