What Happened

With the sofa.

I said I would explain this eventually, and I really wanted to wait until the rug I ordered arrived and I could take a photo. But this week I have come down with a severe case of being Elvis-pilled — really and truly walking around my neighborhood thinking “suspicious minds 😎 (film edit) 😇” — and I don’t think anyone should be subjected that. Instead I wanted to share something I wrote as a little diversion while I was working on the Yahya Abdul-Mateen profile last month. I needed to think about something else, and started writing something short about place and commitment and also the couch I bought and immediately hated:

The second — I mean the very moment, before a trio of delivery men had even finished ripping off the plastic — I knew the sofa wouldn't work. It was wrong in deep and important ways (terribly flat and uncomfortable, it felt like lounging on plywood, like the suggestion of a sofa, not actually what a sofa ought to feel like) and superficial ways (the boucle was more…