Welcome to Is This Available? by Dana and Maria, our weekly blast about something we find on Facebook Marketplace.
New York, New York
Dearest ITA subscribers, perusers, enjoyers of objects. We hope you didn’t unsubscribe while Dana and I were getting older and wiser, not to mention funnier and hotter (I know you thought it was impossible) and ultimately spending a little time in the chrysalis while we emerge better butterflies than ever, free associating in the marketplace of ideas and gently used furniture.
In honor of all these sunny days and blooming, I’m drawing your attention to a few collectibles that to me, signal rebirth, growth, starting fresh etc.
Shell Nightlight and 90s Polly Pocket Hair Salon: I get a certain thrill when I flip through the slides on a listing for something that opens. It’s a micro version of the way I feel when one of my friends tells me “I have a story tell you when I see you,” or I get an email that says “your package has been delivered.” Bated breath vibes. It’s a story when you don’t feel like reading. It’s the serotonin boost from unwrapping and unwrapping–adjacent behaviors. Whether it’s the dim light of an impossibly pink mollusk or two tiny salon chairs, sitting side by side, where you might imagine that you might shrink down and gab while your curlers set — I’m relishing in that heat.
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Kneeling Chair: Something about me is that I am always searching for a new way to sit. I will have reached enlightenment once I can sit in a chair for more than 2 minutes in a way that feels normal. Fingers crossed.
Speaking of kneeling, here are some church pews in the greater Boston area. Although neither Dana nor I find our personal absolution in Christian homes of worship, we do share an affinity for the church pews of a really special Italian restaurant on Tompkins – Macosa Trattoria, where we are known to eat pomodoro and worship at the altar of Sal’s grandma’s tiramisu.
Mille fleur handbag: Calling this a handbag is a big eyebrow raise for me. It’s really a small bejeweled picnic basket and I love her! “Inside looks as if it’s never been used,” now that is a call for freshness and newness and possibility if I have ever heard one. Flowers die quick but diamonds (fake gemstones) are forever.
Cheese table we are reborn because life is cyclical, which means my algorithm will always bring me back to the cheese table and thus I bring you back to about 13 months ago when I wrote about Emma Chamberlain and throwing a cheese party. Shout out to my sister who sent me this TikTok pairing cheeses with Diet Coke.
Grandin Road Frog Lamp: not to be so perverted but that frog is definitely naked under the lampshade! And not in the way that all frogs are presumably naked, but like….naked naked. What I am really saying is that the lampshade is a towel and our amphibious friend is fresh from the shower or the sauna, scrubbed absolutely glistening green and clean and ready to enter the world naked as the day he was born.
Scarf at your sister’s house: Once you have been All Too Well-ed there is really nothing to do other than start over.
Cherub stained glass: summer bucket list: skincare to go cherubic mode, fresh flowers every week, keeping it 100 ($).
Dana’s miss of the week: I wish you could all come over and take a sit at the best seat in the house. I’ve missed you all so much…