A pause to discuss my sometimes bothersome journeys down a rabbit hole that I will call retro research monomania. And to politely inquire, if you don’t mind sharing: Do you suffer this occasional obsession, too, as you try to get a retro design project done?
Right up front, I want to underscore that this is a serious post, no a ha ha I am making fun of myself post. I am not making fun, at all, of manias of any nature and especially, of a more serious nature. For example, I already know that I have perfectionistic, obsession-compulsion type tendencies that I need to manage to live in a well-balanced way. In one sense, these combinations of qualities have helps make me a pretty-able restorer of my midcentury home, as I can search search search search, intensely and tenaciously, for the just-right solution to whatever I’m looking for. The whole situation also has led to this website: I transformed my researching intensity into something positive — by sharing out what I find.
All that said: There are times when my brain becomes absolutely consumed with learning about a new topic… or hunting down particular products… that, well… I know that any strength, when taken too far, can become a weakness.
I came across the word ‘hypomania’ in something I read, and at first, I thought that’s how I’d describe my retro-research-obsession-tendencies. But then, I kept going and found the ‘monomania’ instead.
Wikipedia defines monomania as:
- In 19th-century psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, meaning “madness” or “frenzy”) was a form of partial insanity conceived as single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind … and
- Honoré de Balzac describes monomania in Eugénie Grandet:
As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special symbol of his passion. The sight of gold, the possession of gold, had become a monomania.
Yes, I’ll go out on a limb and say I have “an otherwise sound mind.” But, that when I get goin’, my brain can get Gorilla-glued to a single topic/project/interest. I dive in. Deep. I devour. For how long? Days, or even weeks, until I get my answer — or until, I’m flat-out brain-tired.
Then, there’s a recharge period. Often, it’s months. If I’ve just done a big project, I’m like: NO MORE for a while, everything in this house is FINE as it is!
But eventually, some absolutely tantalizing topic or idea gets my attention again, and I dive back in.
At this moment, I am fairly monomaniacally-possessed about pulling together all the details for my Mahalo Lounge. I have collected some 100 fabric samples to decide upholstery for the sectional. My eyeballs have just about bugged out looking — online and then, via samples sent to me — at oranges, greens and animal prints — in weaves, chenilles and velvets — from various manufacturers daily for … what? … four weeks? Stories to come: Which should I choose?
Now that the pile of upholstery samples is in place and awaiting a final decision, I am beginning to switch my superpowered attention to searching craigslist and ebay and etsy for — what? — two hours? — every day looking for vintage bars and bar stools. This includes: where do I really want to put the bar; based on that, what design do I want; how about the stools; what color to go with the drapes and sectional.
I design ‘in layers.’ One decision gets made — then I move to the next. Still to come: Carpet or area rugs for the room; the decision on just how we’ll faux bois all the woodwork in the two rooms; choosing lauhala mat for the ceilings; get stuff up on the walls; the lighting plan. The lighting plan! That is going. to. vex. me. the. most. I am feeling maniacal — and a bit weary — just writing this list.
At other times since you’ve known me, I’ve also been monomaniacal about:
- Vintage Christmas ornaments (for wreaths)
- Vintage dollhouses and dollhouse furniture
- Vintage dollhouse dolls (I discovered Erna Meyer dolls [affiliate link] and decided they were awesome, and Kate agreed — those are Erna Meyer dolls in her photo above)
- Vintage Hawaiian dresses
- Vintage Hawaiian dress patterns
- Vintage caftans
- Tapa cloth
- Of course: Vintage steel kitchen cabinets — the monomania that started the blog
- In a way, I am monomaniacal when I am at an estate sale. I look everywhere. Every corner, every closet, every rafter. It’s like — I am in a dream — yes, delirious — when I am at the sale. I think there must be a lot of adrenaline or some such chemical pouring into my system before and during. It takes hours for the haze to clear.
When I get my monomania looking for a product/project solution, I can spend hours and hours without stopping, researching these items. My husband, he is amazed at how long I can sit at a computer and work. When I am “into” something, I really need to work hard to focus on other aspects of my life. I have never been a foodie, never cared much about cooking; at these times, it’s worse than ever. Thank goodness for Trader Joe’s frozen enchiladas. Here’s my recipe: Nuke ’em according to directions. Then open a can of pinto or black beans, drain, and nuke them, separately. Then put the enchiladas on top of the beans and nuke for another 30 seconds. There’s enough sauce in the Trader Joe’s enchiladas to sauce up the beans, too. Nom nom.
I also love Amy’s frozen entrees, the mateer paneer, in particular.
I would not say that my occasional monomanias disrupt my life in any truly serious way — and in many ways, they bring me tremendous joy. I also think that being able to focus intensely is part of both my nature, and my nurture. I an inquisitive and like to explore topics thoroughly — I have always been an excellent student. I majored in journalism — and the heart and soul of journalism is ‘reporting’ — that is: researching all angles.
When I am being gentle and kind to myself, I consider my ability to research so intensely a strength that contributes greatly to my hobbies and enables my current vocation and job: Understanding, exploring and sharing midcentury material culture and through it, social culture and history. But, if I am also being honest to myself, I also know that sometimes it can get out of hand. I can get… burnout… the up… the high… then the down… the low… overload… and exhaustion.
I’m not really a goal-setter. But a goal for me this year: (1) Remember to pace myself; (2) very importantly, be sure to spend lots of time with friends and family; and (3) overall, aim for better balance — so I can live a long long time and keep exploring!
Alyssa D. says
I drive my husband crazy with this. We haven’t even bought our forever home yet, but I have a tote full of paint, tile, fabric, and linoleum samples as well as a vintage light for the future kitchen. (It’s chrome with changeable plastic sides, it came with three different options!) I drug that out the other day to make sure I still liked it, which I did…but, I wasn’t so sure about the shades of yellow I put in there. I’ll spend weeks pouring over vintage photos, fabrics, etc.
I just want to get the crazy out BEFORE we get to our forever house. As a stay-at-home-mom/aspiring writer, it is very easy to get sucked into rabbit holes. Which is great for my writing, not so great for my sanity some times.
Carol says
Pam, you have an analytical personality. At a business seminar for managers in the 90’s, we had our personalities analyzed. I was an analytical-driver. The director of the seminar looked at me and said that life must be hard and he was sorry. He said that personality type is rare and opposing. Analyticals want information overload before making a decision and drivers just want to charge into a decision. I had an epiphany, someone finally understood me. He had no idea though that I am OCD. I joined Ancestry and spent 50 hours the first week on the site. I’m like a bulldog with a rope toy. I did find out that I have some very famous and illustrious ancestors. This was shocking to me, in a good way, so I dug hard for 3 weeks and burned out. So Pam, like I suggested a few months ago, just rerun old articles. You have us hooked. We are spoiled by you and do expect something everyday. (so sorry) We just want something. I personally LOVE uploaders. They keep me busy for awhile and you have an army of followers to contribute. Take care of yourself and throw us a bone when you feel overwhelmed. We are just so grateful you are still doing this. At least Amy’s is good for you, it’s one of my favorites. FYI, a new favorite is Dole prepackaged salad called Endless Summer…..
pam kueber says
Thanks, Carol. Doggonit, the uploader plugin is now hanging up my site. I had to shut the last one down. But, I hear your point about re-running old stories. I’ll think about it.
Donna in SC says
Geez…i thought is was just me. My first obsession started with Heywood-Wakefield furniture, then I discovered that I could refinish it. (From this blog, I tell you, along with all of the other ideas below.)
I then bought several pieces of barkcloth for pinch pleat drapes.
Then, it was ornie wreaths. I made 9 last year, and when my son came home to visit, he said “Mom, you have a problem…”
Afterwards, I discovered online auctions for mid-century santa stuff. Shortly thereafter, aluminum Christmas trees; now I have 3.
Then, I started collecting jewelry to make trees for next year.
This weekend it was back to Hey-Wake – i found 2 end tables in excellent condition (one a corner one) at an estate sale for $40, and I was really proud that i didn’t make a fool of myself or faint in the estate house when i realized THEY DID NOT KNOW WHAT THEY HAD!!! And, i found a Hey-Wake desk/chair on Craigslist and drove 150 miles round trip to bring it home to refinish!
I feel the sewing bug, so I feel drapes coming…
Not sure I am a monomaniac, maybe a polymaniac? Am I just preparing for Armageddon so that I will have plenty to do? All I know is that I am holding tightly to things that my parents scraped by with in the early 1960s to provide to us childhoods with vivid memories!
pam kueber says
If I never left my house, I have enough crafties inside to keep me occupied for… what? … 10 years?
KStacey says
My eternally patient husband will occasionally point out that I really don’t need a new “project”, since I could stay home for at least a year and not run out of them. Or maybe should finish the bedroom drapes, master bath wallpaper excavation (the 90s were so cruel and WRONG!), 1/2 reupholstered chairs, kitchen cabinet re-painting, vintage hamper rehabilitation, tiki bar construction, the guest bath sink/vanity construction and replacement, tackling the ebay pile of wonderful things I found something slightly more wonderful to replace, or… unpacking since we moved in 3 months ago? (and those are just the projects I have actually started, many others are ready to begin!) Luckily he is also somebody who understands the need to create something, rather than just buy it from a box store. Or as I like to say, “bending reality to align with my imagination”. He’s just better at the ‘one thing at a time’ part than I am.
But he still hits the round of estate sales with me almost weekly, and enjoys the ‘hunt’ almost as much as I do. And does appreciate the money I actually save in the end. Spending a couple hundred dollars to properly paint kitchen cabinets the perfect shade of pink to match the 1960 Wilsonart pink marble countertops seems perfectly reasonable, when you compare it to spending more than 10X that for the latest trendy granite that is. (I choose to ignore the fact that they were perfectly functional as-they were, because life is too short to settle for functional!)
judy h. says
I made myself batty over details to keep my 1950s raised ranch 100% authentic; looking at hundreds of authentic kitchen sinks just to see if there is one more i haven’t seen, living for months (a year and a half) with huge squares of different color 1950s enamel paint on my kitchen walls to make sure the shade I choose is just right, laboring to make a decision on just what to do with my knotty pine den. My consumption went from the sublime to the ridiculous. About 6 months ago, at an estate sale, I realized that I had been standing in front of a table of chalkware decor agonizing over which piece would look just right in my buit-ins when my husband took the item from my hands, set it down and said, “We’re leaving!” We went for coffee and in his most gentle way, he took me over the past few years and helped me realize how much TIME I had wasted and how much ENERGY I had spent fretting away over details that in the end, wouldn’t matter in the in the look and presentation of our home. He said, “Step away, take a breath, it’s not life or death! It’s a piece of decor, a color of paint!” For the next couple of days, I reflected on or conversation and I felt a huge weight seem to lighten its load. Much as it “got my goat”, I had to agree with him. I’m stepping away more and more frequently and taking a breath and noticing how much more I am ebjoying my home.
pam kueber says
Well said.
Nikky G. says
This spoke to me on so many levels! I really thought I had weird obsessive trait that affected just me, but after reading this, it’s so nice to know I’m not alone. Thank you for putting it out there in words so honestly–for me! 🙂
Gretchen Fucio says
Right now I am feeling very grateful for my ADD ways- I used to envy you super focused, organized types, but now I know you aren’t having it any easier. Pam, maybe you need a new name for the Mahalo Room- may I suggest the “Hakuna Matate Lounge”? LOL!
pam kueber says
Haha. Yes, and if it were Hakuna Matate I would never need to dust or clean, right?
Lynne says
First off, I say…breathe……Stop. Relax. You are asking yourself for perfection where is doesn’t exist. You are stressing yourself out unnecessarily, in my opinion.
You know what you want the finished Mahalo Lounge to look like. You have the vision. Trust yourself. Maybe even draw up a color rendering to keep yourself on track. Even if we want that true absolute perfection replica of a 1957 room, the truth is its 2017. We have to buy, design and work with what is available to us now. Sure, we can scour Craislist, or Ebay endless hours and maybe make that one fabulous find. What are the odds?? And if you do find something, what’s the condition? I used to be a “frantic looker”. Madly rushing to estate sales , grabbing anything mid century, just because it was. Now, I go with a “filter”. Each thing I find I ask myself: Do I have a use for it? Do I know exactly where this thing/item is going to go in my room? What is the condition? Nicks? Chips? A simple cleaning or is really not worthy of the work and expense I’m going through in a room remodel? I want a lovely finished polished room.
100 fabric samples. Okay….. Think. What do you want this sofa to look like? You know what you want, you know you do. Take 8-10 samples at a time. Lay’em out in front of you. Which do you love? Which of that 8-10 do you want to actually LOOK at for 10 years? Which is really a little too red, or pink, or blue??? Is it scratchy, and no one is going to want to sit on it ? Maybe you’re concerned one may pill, or snag, or show every little fuzz or cocktail weenie spill. Throw those aside and never look back. Grab the next 8-10, lather rinse and repeat. Once you’ve narrowed it to a few. Analyze them. Ask the same questions over again. Don’t loose your focus, it is so easy to be taken in a direction you don’t really wish to go.
Work on ONE issue at a time. First sofa fabric, then the rug, then the painting. All of them at once is overwhelming.
Digging for info and “getting it right” is obviously very important to you. Fine, but I’ll bet ya that the same sniglet of information that is there on Monday morning, will still be there on Thursday afternoon. Push away from the computer and make a nice lunch. On a plate, with your sandwich cut into little triangles. At the kitchen table-not at your desk. Use those adorable vintage glasses you found for your iced tea. Be kinder to yourself.
I have had the same problems. Shall I show you the huge rubbermaid bins of vintage sewing patterns? How about the filing cabinets full of them? My bins of vintage fabrics? Now, I look at all this and say “What was I thinking???” Now, I apply my filter. Only what I KNOW I can use or need or is very unique winds up in my home.
Mary Elizabeth says
Pam, I come from a family of four who suffered as children from both ADD and OCD, which are at war with one another at times. Since there was no knowledge of working with these disorders in schools in those days, each of us developed our own coping mechanisms. Here’s how mine work in retro-renovation terms.
First, I decide to redo our pink bathroom using existing elements as much as possible and replacing what absolutely has to be replaced with something compatible with the style of the original. Immediately, my OCD kicks in, and I obsess with finding replacement parts, spending hours in second-hand shops and on line.
Second, my ADD kicks in, and my mind wanders from the replacement parts to the fixing of the original ones–finding the right cleaner for the tub while I was supposed to be looking for a replacement toilet seat is an example.
Third, I use my OCD to create a plan with so much minutia that it is totally inflexible. (I can’t possibly put in the new toilet seat, I think, until have determined that I am not replacing the old toilet), so back I go to online research about toilets.
Fourth, ADD again: Oh, look! The perfect knick-knack for my pink bathroom on etsy.com!
Fifth, OCD is back: I have nowhere to put that knick-knack, so I design a bathroom shelf for DH to build me. Still don’t have a toilet seat or a decision to buy a new pink toilet or keep the perfectly good white one.
What’s funny is that DH, who thinks in a more organized, linear fashion, is always looking to me for the main plan and wants to go systematically through the steps. But I don’t work that way, and neither does the availability of retro materials. So we end up doing temporary fixes that have to be adjusted or completely abandoned later. We’ve just learned to work with one another on this–DH knows now that retro work is not the same as planning new construction from consistently available materials. I know now to draw him up a plan with flow charts that can go in this direction or another direction when we find the right materials.
And mostly, I’ve learned to not beat myself up about my glitches. I now think the OCD in me is just my ability to really focus at times, and the ADD is creatively diffuse thinking! 🙂
Donna in SC says
Oh, Mary Elizabeth, this sounds quite like me!
Kimberly Taylor says
Oh yes, definitely! I spent 3+ hours, non-stop, just the other day trying to find a blog post I shared with a friend on her Facebook page…in 2012! I did a web search looking for the blog…all I could remember is that the blog had the word “ranch” in it. I searched through your archives, I searched through all my friend’s 3000+ photos looking for a specific picture so I could figure out what time period I shared it with her, looked at the pm’s we exchanged each other, went through my email archives, and finally, FINALLY went through her Facebook page month, by month and found it! It was for Deck’s Glassware, by the way. Worth every hour spent!
Barbara says
Okay Pamela!
This is Pamela’s day! It’s about you, Pamela! Help is here!!
Let’s get started!
First of all, your not going crazy!
Multi-tasking is not easy to achieve, on any level. Staying focused, while multi-tasking, brings on a whole new game.
Finishing what we started, maybe all at once/completing them ALL in a timely manner, is the end.! Your finished!!
Pamela, you have mastered the fast lane approach over-and-over again. And, just to remind you, with all that endless determination.
Now, let’s pause, check out where ALL of those endless hours went. That’s right, that kitchen of your is amazing!!
Now step away! No working for as long as it takes. Remember, your the BOSS!
It’s time to focus on balance. Something that also requires endless hours of dedication. Something that you feel, not a project you put together. Our bodies!
Yes it functions as a machine, but, just like a car, it needs to be greased.
Starting with that over worked brain/over worked body, okay both.
When your body feels comfort, your brain does too.
COMFORT: yoga, meditation, hot baths, massages from head-to-toe, husband time, doggie walks, favorite smells, food, music, painting, reading, clothes, pictures, movie, etc.
NO-NO’s: No computer! No phone! No new projects! Try it for 2 days. The world will not stop. Only you!
TIME: Can not go buy time. Can not put it on hold. CAN NOT GET IT BACK!
Remember, even a work alcoholic needs to have tires rotated. Your needs met! Utilizing “YOU” time that meets your fancy is BALANCE guaranteed.
YOUR THE BOSS!!
Barbara