A Few Of My Favorite Things

I love my bed. In a nod to Pee Wee Herman, I call it “beddy”, my beddy. Even with my love affair with my sleeping place, it is used exclusively for sleeping & well, you know…I don’t eat, read or watch TV in bed.

The bed frame is from West Elm, & the headboard is by the Husband, made from pieces of a vintage door from Indonesia. The mattress is a California King by Royal-Pedic. The mattress retails for about $3000, but was purchased by the Husband at cost. The current blanket is a coverlet by Peacock Alley & the Duvet cover is from West Elm.

The Husband sleeps with his feet outside the covers & the duvet pulled up to his eyelids. He wears a tee shirt & curls up into a little ball. I sleep naked in corpse position with my upper chest outside of the covers. I share the bed with my man & 2 canines. Larry, the fat dog, likes to sleep on my feet, & junior sleeps curled up between us, making spontaneous affection between the husband & me mostly impossible. In fact, we rarely run into each other in the night.

I like to sleep. I can easily sleep 9 hours a night, & I love to nap in my beddie, slipping just under the duvet layer.

My childhood headboard re-used in the guest room.

A bed by the Husband in the guest room, circa 2001

I have always had a pretty cool bed. I still have my childhood headboard. It was the guest bed in the 2nd bedrrom until the Husband claimed the room as his studio. I make my bed every day & I have since I was 4 years old. One day in 2007, in an effort to prove that I am not the rigid control freak I was accused of being by the Husband & a friend, I chose not to make the bed. I went to work with the bed a morning tangle. I did well for the 1st hour, & then I thought about nothing else but the unmade bed all day until I got home in the evening. I made the bed just a few hours before I would get in it again. Never again.

Our bed in our Seattle cottage, circa 1986

Sleep tight & don’t let the bed bugs bite.

A bed that the Husband designed & built the headboard for WCK3 in October 2010.

A bed the Husband did for a photo shoot.

The Bed Is Too Big Without You

The bed is too big without you...

I have never disagreed with any of his design choices for any of our homes, from our 1st apartment in 1979 to Post Apocalyptic Bohemia in the 21st century; even when those design choices were bold, to say the least.


The Husband sat through every play that I ever performed in, back in my acting days. He would see the ones that he liked more than once & he would be gentle in his opinion with the shows that he did not care for & on occasion really disliked. Bless his soul, he sat through my brilliant turn in Becket’s Endgame, & possibly the worst production of Cabaret (although he did point out that as Herr Shultz, it was as if the actress I played opposite & I were seemingly in a separate show). When he loved my performance & was behind the production, he could be the biggest fan (Pump Boys & Dinettes).


The Husband & I have the same taste in films, theatre, TV, books & we enjoy sharing the experiences. Where we differ, we are challenged & interested in the other person’s choices. I am engaged by nature & history documentaries when channel hopping & he likes Survivor, which is my cue to go to bed early.


We travel very well together, which I believe could be litmus test for any friendship. We don’t have separate money, we have the same friends, for decades we had one wardrobe, until I got bigger & he got smaller. It is a marriage that mostly works & after 31 years, there are rarely any big surprises.

It didn’t seem to be a big deal, & there was no malice, impatience or judgment involved in my moving the coat that he had placed across the handsome, modern desk chair at my worktable & placing it in the coat closet. He knows that I am just short of needing medication for compulsive neatness. We have the coat closet & coat racks on the landing to the basement. I wasn’t unhappy with him & I showed no irritation when I moved his outerwear. Yet, he was furious with me.


The Husband has a similar reaction when I arrive home from work & immediately commence to cleaning. He seems to feel that I am editorializing. I have made a heartfelt attempt to not do that, but sometimes the need to wash dishes & clean the counters wins out of best intentions.


The vibe between us was anxious, angry & averse because of the coat moving incident. We snapped at each other, were driven off track with mentions of past slights & we ended the evening not speaking. As always in this situation, I was so bruised that I chose to sleep on a day bed in the back room rather than join him in the marriage bed.

 The following evening the husband stated: “I find it very amusing that we punish each other by not sleeping together, as if we are doling out real reparation, retribution & reprimands by depriving the other of snoring, drooling, moving around & the ups & downs of a night’s sleep. Ooo, I am so angry with you, I am going to deprive you of my company while you slumber!”


I thought about our absolute antagonism & antipathy toward each other’s automobile driving techniques & skills. Too bad that we are not able to just exit the car & get in another when we swipe at each other while driving. “I am so mad at you, I am going to deprive you have the pleasure of having me in the automobile. I am going to just drive on my own! Bitch!”