Home Bodies

On weekends, Steve and I tend to fly about in a disorganized way. We drag the kids around on various chores or suddenly decide that we really need steamed vegetable dumplings on Mott Street. There are baseball games, birthday parties, showers, and town pancake dinners. Maybe it was all those years sitting in the library, but we’re just not that good at sitting still any more.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been forced to be still. We’ve been batting around strep throat back and forth between us. Ian to Steve to me to Ian and then back Steve. Wimbleton for throat infections. The illness took the wind out of our roaming, and we’ve been camped out at home.

The good news is that it’s very hip to be a home-body right now.

The under 30 crowd is more up on Ethan Allen than edgy clubs downtown. There’s a new VW commercial of two hip kids dancing in a city apartment to loud music. The downstairs dude complains, so they move to the suburbs where they can dance in peace. Those crazy rebels.

Then there’s the new mag, Domino. My friend, Susan, has been looking forward to its publication for months and called with the good news that it was on the stands last week.

Okay, I love it. It’s like Lucky, but with shelves instead of slingbacks. Unlike other “shelter magazines,” it is aimed at those without trustfunds or sugardaddies. One articles shows you how to update your Billy bookshelf with a bright coat of paint. Another advises you how to make your bed pretty with an Isaac Mizrahi pillowcase from Target. It’s so low end that it’s almost subversive.

We’ll probably return to our flying about ways soon, but it the meantime I’ve made an interesting tableaux of green and blue dishes in the kitchen, reframed some prints for the living room, had Steve secure a Martha Stewart curtain rod in the kitchen, and purchased Nautica comforters for the boys’ new bunkbed.