Here's why I'm a sucker for marketing

This is not my bedroom. I wish it was, but it's not. Currently my bedroom has a bed on a frame with no headboard or footboard, two mismatched antique chests of drawers, two comforters and four pillows, all with mismatched textiles. There are shoes on the floor in front of the smaller chest, which holds a dusty fan and several tshirts, a pair of jeans and some cotton shorts. There is a mirror on one of the walls and a TV on the other chest. It could be described at the very least as functional. But it's not the bedroom in the picture.

I like simple, almost stark, clean, pure lines. I like big fluffy comforters with duvets in rich tones. I like a bed that screams out to the living room, "Come on in and lay down!" For some reason I have never actually had that kind of bedroom.

I got the Ikea catalog in the mail today, and I love Ikea because Ikea for some reason knows exactly the life I want to live. Or at least the place I come home to after having lived it. I want every one of the duvet sets and all but a few of the beds. I want throws and big comfy sofas and wicker chests with big brass buckles that I'd use as a coffee table. I want simple prints in silver frames lined up along one wall. I want soft linen panels that hang from a cafe rod over my slider and softly billow in the breeze. For some reason I want a dining room table that's already set with earth-toned plates and bowls and napkins in wooden rings. I want something at least marginally more attractive than what I currently have to set my old-school tube TV on. I want rugs, and throw pillows, and hooks to hang my coat on when I come in the door. I want to walk in to the bedroom and toss my sweater on to the bed and have it LOOK like it's supposed to be there.

The people who live in the Ikea catalog do not have cats whose claws have absolutely and irreversibly ruined their sofa. They do not have to vacuum constantly to get the hair up, and do not find stuffed mice in their shoes. You never see kibble on the kitchen floor or little splashes of water next to the bowl. They don't wear houseclothes, or if they do, they are certainly nothing like mine. They dust (or someone does it for them). They lounge, they eat whole wheat pasta with feta and quinoa salad and sip red wine. They watch public broadcasting and are working on their next novel. They don't realize they have to take the trash out the minute the bra is off, the make up removed and the hair is pulled on top of the head. They prefer bicycles to cars and are responsible enough to phone the Beaverton Honda to schedule their rear brake repair. They balance their checkbooks and have ironing boards and like to knit. I'd never make it in the Ikea catalog world.

But I think I want a bed, at least a bed, that looks like this one. It's time I had one, don't you think? Maybe if I start with a bed, it will inspire me to build the life I've always supposed I should have. The life the Ikea catalog says I should have.