How to put your clothes away. This is no joke.

photo via

On 1 February, the undergrads over at Apartment Therapy ran a piece it's taken me more than two weeks to be able to talk about. The headline read, How to put your clothes away each day. I'm not kidding.

I get it that their readership is skewed pretty young. But really? How to fold your clothes? I'm waiting for a blistering expose on people who don't separate their whites and colors conscientiously. Am I just being cranky? Do people really need this kind of advice?

I'm usually so exhausted by bedtime that the the best I can do is throw my clothes at the end of my bed or on a chair. But I've recently employed a new head game with myself that actually seems to be working.

It's simple and might sound strange — when I'm tempted to just chuck the clothes somewhere, anywhere, I just start calmly counting seconds in my head. This started as an exercise just to see how long it would actually take to just put the clothes away. I learned that it only takes about sixty seconds to hang up and fold whatever I'm wearing. But this counting practice, which I employ whenever I'm convinced that I'm too tired to put my clothes away, has turned into a successful and oddly meditative pre-bedtime ritual.

Seriously. So far, this piece has collected 40 comments. In a quickie run through of them, I saw little more than praise for the author's cleverness. How is adult behavior clever and since when is behaving in an expected, responsible way praiseworthy?

Maybe next month we'll be treated to something equally insightful like "How to wash your hands after making stinkies --every time!"

Fame! I'm gonna live forever!

Click on the photo to make it appear full-size.

Fashion and faucets

Last weekend, I sat with an esteemed group of designer/ bloggers in a faucet seminar hosted by the incredible design and marketing team from Brizo. Our seminar consisted of a review of their current offerings, a preview of what's coming in the next few model years and some really great discussions with Brizo's design team about what inspires them to do the work they do. It's no accident that Brizo's events coincide with Fashion Week, the runway shows in New York are events industrial designers attend anyway. What goes down those runways goes on to inspire the offerings and trends of every consumer product you can imagine, it's far more than just apparel.

This is the RSVP, it was inspired by an Erte illustration.

This is the Baliza, inspired by the lines and light beam of a lighthouse.

This is the Vesi Channel, inspired by water rushing down a mountain stream.

This is the Floriano, inspired by a wilting flower.

This is the Virage, a study of lines and shadows based on a wrought iron grille.

It's beautiful, intensely creative work and seeing what the designers at Brizo are working on now is a thrill and a privilege. So who knows what will inspire the next great faucet? Or the next great car, sofa, mobile phone, book cover, Kleenex box or soup can?

Can a faucet be born of this?

Or this?

Maybe this.

Stay tuned, there's some really thrilling things coming from the House of Brizo in the next few years.

So the other bloggers who were in New York with me last weekend were a pretty impressive group. Being in New York was an honor enough, being counted as a member of this esteemed group was something I never thought would ever come to be. Amazing.

Aston Smith

Sabrina Velandry

Paul Velandry

Cheryl Kees-Clendenon

Ann Porter

Susan Serra

Jamie Goldberg

Kelly Morrisseu

Adrienne Palmer

Laurie Burke

Chuck Wheelock

Johnny Grey

Sarah Lloyd

Pam Rodriguez

Andie Day

Carmen Natschke

Leslie Clagett

Saxon Henry

Sunday morning and then home

Few things can compare with a slow Sunday morning in New York. Coffee tastes better, the newspaper is more interesting, the Debussy playing in the background sounds better. Maybe I'm a sap for cliches or maybe I really am a snob.

In a couple of hours the driver's going to take me back across the bridge where the glorious bedlam of LaGuardia awaits and in a few hours I'll be home. Back to life back to ringing phones back to having too much to do. It'll take a couple of days, but I'll get into the swing of things again. I'll choose the life I lead over the life I imagine for myself on this island nation unto itself, this real-life emerald city.

Every time I come up here it's better than the last time and I always think of the last one as the best I've ever had. I can't think of anything else or anywhere else that can so consistently surpass my lofty expectations. If it's possible to be in love with a place I am. So thanks New York, and thanks Brizo and thanks to everybody had had the pleasure to meet this time around. I can't imagine how anything's going to top this weekend, so I'm going to stop wondering and let it happen when it happens.

Dateline New York

Every time I come to New York I tell myself that I am going to take it slow and not have every second accounted for. Without fail, that never happens.

I met up with my friend Tom early this morning for breakfast and then a visit to the Morgan Library. The Morgan Library was the private library of financier H. P. Morgan and it's now a museum.

On display now are the Hours of Catherine of Cleves in an exhibit called Demons and Devotions. Catherine's Hours was her personal prayer book and it was finished in 1440 or so. It survives as one of the greatest examples of an illuminated manuscript ever created.

The artist is known only as The Master and to see these pages up close and personal is to touch those times. The colors are shockingly bright and the scenes from every day life that surround Catherine's prayers allow on e a glimpse into the personal, everyday life of a noblewoman in pre-Ranaissance northern Europe.

From an art history context, you can see the beginnings of a return to perspective in western art and to modern eyes, it's easy to see how the Master fell short of showing true perspective. To modern eyes too, it's amazing to see a move in the direction that would reach full flower a hundred years later in Florence. It's amazing stuff.

Next up is a run over to the Cell Theater in Chelsea to see my great friend Janine in an Italian Play, Tosca e le altre due (Tosca and the two downstairs).

I love this town. Really. Where else in the US can you spend the morning poking through six hundred year old manuscripts and then spend the afternoon at a matinee performance of a contemporary Italian play?

I'm flying home to St. Pete tomorrow afternoon and once there I'll spend some time reviewing some of the design-related things I've seen and learned over the last few days. The bloggery conclave was by all counts an incredible success and it has been a pleasure I never thought would happen. I got the chance to meet in person a group of people I've been corresponding with for what seems like ages. Such times are these that I could befriend a group of people I've never met. Curiouser still is the experience of already knowing someone I'm meeting for the first time. Social media is an amazement and I have the great people at Brizo to thank.