Why Miscellania? Because variety is the spice of life, and I have a wide variety of interests. Vintage clothing and jewelry, antique powder compacts, 20th-century furniture and decorative arts, old books, and cheesy New Wave records of the Eighties are just a few of the many things a Modern Girl (or Guy) needs for Modern Living (well, maybe not the jewelry or compacts if you're a guy, but you never know). There might even be a few action figures thrown in now and then. My current preoccupation is transforming my ho-hum apartment, once the site of a potato chip factory, into a mecca of Mid-Century Modern style. Which brings me to eBay.

I was formally trained as a costume and decorative arts historian. I worked for many years at one of New York's most prestigious museums before relocating to the Boston area. As a costume historian, I have amassed a large collection of costume and fashion books, particularly antiquarian, rare, and out-of-print books. Due to the smaller size of said former-potato-chip-factory apartment, however, I am in the process of weeding out my once-vast personal costume and fashion reference library. It breaks my heart to do so, but I no longer have room for so many books. What I do have room for, however, and plenty of it, is new furniture! But not just any furniture. I want to redecorate with Mid-Century Modern furniture, just like Lucy did after she gave away her old furniture to Ethel so she'd have an excuse to buy new stuff. Wasn't Ricky furious? But I digress. For my own apartment, I have a particular fondness for Heywood Wakefield and Paul McCobb furniture, which begs the question: how can a working gal of modest means transform her humble abode into a fabulously stylish pad? After all, Marlo Thomas did it in That Girl. But struggling actresses always have fabulous apartments in TV Land. I knew I had to pull myself up by my slingbacks and come up with a creative solution to both eliminate clutter and redecorate. Then it occurred to me: sell my books, and in return, use the funds to furnish my apartment. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

And since I'm cIearing out clutter, I realized that I also don't have room for the several action figures that I collected for a few years in the mid-90s. This includes my attempt at starting an "evil redhead" collection (I'm a redhead myself), featuring such luminary but evil figures as Poison Ivy from Batman and Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon. Given the scarcity of evil redheaded action figures, however, this attempt was doomed to failure. I also collected fashion dolls of the 90s. These include Ashton Drake's Gene, and Hamilton Design System's Candi Girl. They might make an appearance on eBay sometime soon as well.

My favorite color is pink, and I am a self-confessed beauty product junkie. My favorite eras of fashion and decorative arts are those of the 20th century, from the Twenties to the Sixties, but I am also extremely partial to the late-18th-early-19th-century Neoclassical period. I love old romantic comedies such as Funny Face, Paris When It Sizzles (Audrey Hepburn is my favorite actress) and Some Like it Hot.