Marilyn Monroe’s House

Marilyn Monroe’s final home can be yours for a mere $3.6 million! This may be the Covet to end all Covets. Imagine swimming in her pool, cooking in her kitchen, walking the same tiled floors, looking in the same mirror (though not seeing the same reflection). Fortunately, it appears that the house has been little altered over the years, so I hope whoever is lucky enough to buy it keeps up the tradition of preservation.

You can see more pictures and details here, but first a warning*: this site is extremely addictive, and may take up hours of your life as you investigate the mansion from “Practical Magic”, the houses from “Gilmore Girls” and “Bewitched”, not to mention Before and After transformations. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’ve always been fascinated by Marilyn, and felt a special connection to her. Nearly ten years ago, I paid her a visit, which I found very moving. You can see my kiss just below her plaque. Our birthdays are three days apart, she died the year I was born, we had the same middle name and unstable mothers. We battled some of the same demons. I have always been convinced that if she had real, true friends who honestly cared about her (the way mine do), she’d still be alive today.

*That reminds me of the scene in “Death Becomes Her” where Meryl Streep has just downed the magic potion and Isabella Rosselini gives her a warning about it, to which the incensed Meryl replies (with some justification) “Now a warning?!”

It’s only a month until my birthday. Unfortunately, Santa is a slacker, working one day a year and taking the rest off, so there’s no point in sending him my wish list. Especially since I’m rarely, if ever, nice. But there’s nothing to stop me from sharing it with you.

1. Mad Men Barbies

As so often happens, just one is the thin edge of the wedge. You live your entire life Barbie-less, and wham! You see “The Birds” Barbie and must have it. I bought it as a housewarming present to myself (almost the same housewarming capabilities as the propane heater, though much cuter) and love it. And it was half-price, making it almost guilt-free!

Now that I know the joys of Barbie love, I want more. And who can blame me? Check out the visual aids:

Unfortunately, they cost about $75 each, putting them neatly outside the realm of possibility. Unlike my $19.99 Tippi Hedren. And of course I want the whole set.

2. Feather Ring

This is by Georgina Chapman (of Marchesa) for Garrard, jewelers to the Royal Family (including some of the Crown Jewels). Much more modest than a Crown of State, but would still give a girl’s outfit a certain je ne sais quoi.

3. Feather Shoes

In keeping with the purple feather theme, how about these beauties:

They’d look great next to my only other pair of Manolo Blahniks, also slingbacks, but in lavender suede. Too bad a girl can’t wear more than one pair of shoes at a time.

4. Chanel Jade Nail Polish

Introduced last Fall, it’s already sold out, making it doubly unavailable to Self, since I couldn’t afford the original $49.95 price tag, and it’s selling for more than twice that on eBay. Even I think paying three figures for nail polish verges on madness.

I’ll have to settle for No Miss nail polish in the delightfully-named Cape Haze Crypto, a mere $6 at a health food store which bills itself as (insert groan here) a worker’s collective. Almost sucked all the frivolity out of buying it.

5. Eye Spackle

That’s what I call Dermalogica’s Multi-Vitamin Power Firm. It magically fills in those little laugh (and cry) lines around the eyes, hence my nickname for it. Just because you’re almost thirty-eighteen doesn’t mean you have to look it. But magic doesn’t come cheap – it’s about $50 in this case. Which is why I’m still squeezing every possible molecule out of the tube I have.

If you really love me, I’d love this little place in North Beach. You’d have a guest room waiting for you any time!

Etsy has the most fabulous things. Here are some I’d snap up if money were no object:

A pencil urchin ($125). It would look so cute on my desk for the five seconds before the kittens knocked it to the ground and played with it into oblivion.

Florapalooza vase ($84). I have three vases from the wonderful Stonehouse Pottery on my mantel, and they’re Museum Waxed into place. We all know how the girls can’t resist shredding flowers, or the vases they’re in.

Tweed Boston bag with leather corsage ($89.90). Who knew tweed could be so frivolous?

“Koro” ($110): a modern light fixture/chandelier inspired by coral, but made to order of Japanese paper (along with, you know all the lights and wiring and things like that).

Who needs a little black dress when you can sport a summery little white dress ($254)? This has style to spare – I could see Mrs. O in this one.

Be your own Barbie* in a swimsuit ($110) modeled after the original 1959 Barbie’s (up to $8,000), back when she was a sassy brunette. You can finally wear doll clothes in real life!

*I never realized I before that I was so Barbie obsessed. I never had one as kid, or asked for one, but as an adult, I have visited the Barbie Hall of Fame in Palo Alto and totally covet the “The Birds” Barbie. Yet another mystery brought to you by the shallow eddies of Suzy’s frivolous mind.

Ah, a Bay Area summer day. Wrapped in thick, pastel fog as you are wrapped in a thick, pastel sweater. Around 3:00, the sun peeks through, realizes it’s looking at Oakhampton, shuts the curtains again and flees in horror to more salubrious (or glamorous) climes.

So even though it’s well after Memorial Day*, you don’t really feel like it’s time to break out those summer whites just yet. Unless it’s these summer whites:

(Above) Trust Valentino to come up with this wonderfully over the top white patent leather gem. About $1,500.

(Above) This Gucci Joy bag would certainly bring me some. Around $1,000.

(Above) There’s always Chanel. Closer to $3,000.

Or an evening bag that costs about the same as a modest house in many parts of the country. It’s up to you, my well-accessorized friend.

*Does anyone still keep to the rule of not wearing white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day? I suspect not, just as no-one seems to follow the old rule that one is supposed to congratulate the groom and wish the bride good luck, which kind of says it all to me.

I was startled awake by an unexpected (and unexpectedly heavy) shower this morning. I dashed outside in my pajamas, to the detriment of my velvet slippers, and grabbed Henry’s dishes and bed. By the time I got to the back porch, I would have won the neighborhood wet PJ contest. I propped the door open, fed and watered Henry, then called him until he appeared. He seemed a little nervous, maybe because the girls have been lounging on the porch and now it feels like enemy territory, but at least he can get out of the rain. As I write, he’s lying comfortably on his newly spring cleaned couch, possibly thinking “It’s mine now, girls!”

It’s been a little like Florida today: torrential downpour, followed by sudden sun, then another downpour. I dashed between the raindrops to (literally) run some errands, including the post office, where the guy ahead of me was getting a $2,000 money order. I definitely Coveted that beautiful pile of money.

Remember the house with the white picket fence? No-one rented it on Saturday, so I’m going to look at it tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully traffic will be kinder to me than it was this weekend (when I finally got home, I learned that there had been no fewer than three accidents. No wonder it was such a mess). I’ll keep you posted, rain or shine.

My BART covets:

The girl wearing a fabulous fuchsia taffeta trenchcoat, short, and carrying the incredible Louis Vuitton Alma bag in rose pop:

Honey, why are you on BART and not being glamorously chauffeured into town?

And then there’s the lovely wearing the sold out J Crew Astrid jacket in ivory:

who, with her knee high sassyboots, should have been stepping into her limo. Haughtily.

I would have felt underdressed if I weren’t wearing these:

And carrying this:

But a girl can still Covet. In the most unlikely places.

There’s nothing like sneaking out of work in the middle of the week on a sunny summer day. Leaving looming deadlines at my desk and the cats in charge, I ventured to the Oakland Museum of California to check out the soon-ending Birth of the Cool exhibit, showcasing mid-century Southern California art and architecture.

The exhibit turned out to be one big Covet for me.

Pierre Koenig houses…who wouldn’t want to live that fabulous, martini-sipping by the pool lifestyle, overlooking the bright lights of LA?

Paintings by…

John McLaughlin and

Karl Benjamin. Gorgeous, minimalist, vibrant.

I wandered through the galleries, imagining what it would be like to live in such beautiful surroundings, with such beautiful objects. And whether it would be different now as opposed to then. Did the original owners see the sleek beauty the same way we do today?

More and more I wish I lived in the past when everything was so much more aesthetically pleasing.

Behind Door Number One, this $3.6 million Victorian, in my former neighborhood, Pacific Heights. Sometimes I can’t believe I used to own an apartment there. It seems so long ago, a lifetime ago.

Details of this dream house are here while it’s still on the market.

For a mere $100,000 more than Door Number One, Door Number Two can be yours. See the possibilities here while it lasts.

And finally, for a mere $3.5 million, you can buy this beauty just doors away from my old place. I always admired this building as I walked past.

The Covets are all things I could never have in real life. But if I could live anywhere, it would be San Francisco, and it would be Pacific Heights. Sure, a pied ? terre in Paris or a brownstone in New York or a Malibu beach house sound glamorous, but they could never be home.

A girl can dream. And Covet.

Everything Audrey (That neck! Those eyes! That style!), but especially this gown by the great Hubert de Givenchy, which she wore in Sabrina. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship – Givenchy dressed Audrey for the rest of her elegant life.

Or this one, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It sold at auction in 2006 for over $930,000! So it’s not just Me.

I’d prefer the pink one on the left, but would happily accept any of these fabulous Lulu Guinness handbags – if you could find one.