This Charming House

I have a confession to make.

For the past ten years I have been carrying on a long distance, hopeless (I thought) and unhealthy love affair with the lamp on Carrie Bradshaw's desk.

It was aloof, impossible, clearly vintage and completely unattainable - just like George Clooney. 

Here it is, taunting me with it's beauty in Season 3:

Even after the series ended,  it wasn't done torturing me.   It came back in one of the very first scenes of the movie:

It even survived the controversial redecoration of Carrie's apartment:

And all along, I wanted it.

There was a blank space in my house because it was the only thing that would do.

Oh, I mean, there were other lamps.  Stand ins.  Place holders.  Cheap and unloved and replaceable - picked up on street corners and IKEAs and various Target sales racks.    

All the while I was watching SATC reruns and pining away for the unattainable Carrie lamp; hitting up flea markets and antique malls; trolling Ebay and online lamp sites - trying to find another lamp.   One that might be at least similar enough to assuage my yearning.  A real lamp.  Not just a celebrity lamp crush.  Years went by ..... 

Well, my darling readers, on Saturday at Hipsteria Modern in Raleigh, North Carolina....... I found one!!!!!

THE EXACT SAME ONE!!!!! VINTAGE!!!!  FOR $45!!!!!  OMG!

Can you believe it?  I certainly can't. 

Here it is in the dining room, in the place that I've been holding for it, all these years.  I suspect it doesn't go with the rest of the room, but I don't care:

I mean when I saw it, I kind of freaked.  I knew that it was close, but I wouldn't let myself really believe it was the same.  I didn't even mention it to my friends.  They were both giving me the same look that they always give me when I'm doing the happy dance of shopping love and they think I'm buying something ugly at the flea market.  Julie even suggested that I *gasp* spray paint it..... But I didn't care.  I knew I'd found something special (at least to me).  And when I got home - damn!  The SAME lamp!  Jackpot!!

Here's a close up:

I wonder how many other house obsessed people are out there looking for this lamp?

All I really have left to say about it is that I think this definitively proves that God loves me better.

Just sayin.