Ode to a Lamp

If you found yesterdays blurb inspiring, no worries, I’m back to normal with something the opposite of that. It’s all about this lamp.

Right now it’s sitting on top of the built on shelf of what used to be a very useful computer desk when we needed a pull-out perch for a keyboard. (The desk is now a collection spot in the bedroom for ”things that have to be put somewhere” until they finally make their way out the door headed for Value Village or the garbage bin.) The lamp is rather close to the ceiling when it sits up there. I thought it might throw more light down on me if it was up higher, but no such luck.

It’s one of those purchases I look at now and wonder “what was I thinking” and then feel the need to remember (or invent) my thought processes to justify carting it home. I liked how it looked, absolutely. I was in my ”African” obsessed stage of decorating development. I still have elephants and giraffes and decorative masks on my walls, and even some weird animal print candles hanging around, but less than half the amount of stuff I used to have. The lamp fit with the decor at the time but would also be useful as a light source I thought. Amazing how I failed to notice the shade being opaque.

Our house was built when nobody put overhead lighting in their living rooms, thus our need for a lamp or two. Unfortunately I have a history of poor lamp choices. I think it began with a cursed pole lamp wedding gift with three upside-down green tulip shades. It shed ugly lamp vibes all over me and I’ve been lamp doomed ever since. Remember swag lamps? Yep, I’d likely still have mine, creepy looking chain and all, if it hadn’t shorted out and tried to burn the house down.

For whatever obscure reason I still like this silly thing. It’s been moved all over the house in search of a spot where it might fit in and belong. It casts a dull glow in a dark corner but fails utterly otherwise. It’s too tall for a table, too short for the floor, hard to dust, and has an inconvenient switch partway down its cord. And yet, here it is, with a face only a doomed lamp lady could love.

I love it SO much, if someone snuck it out of my house and I never saw it again I might not even notice it was gone.