Lamp Fancy

I bought a new lava lamp. I'm currently afraid to look away too long because I don't want to miss when it throws its first good bubble. The wax has softened and rounded and now it's just a matter of time until it finally blurps up a good bubble. It's thrown up a little trapped oxygen and some lint and dust and crap but no bubbles yet.

Since Thursday it has become a running gag in my family that I am somehow obsessed with lamps. Thursday afternoon I went over to the mall and watched a movie and afterward I stopped in at the dollar store where I found a bin of tacky little lampshades. I looked at a few and wondered what sort of lamp they were supposed to fit on and where I was supposed to find such a lamp, then I noticed that one foot above that bin was a shelf (pretty much at eye level) with little lamps shaped like candles, and if that wasn't clear enough, they'd pulled one out of its box and stuck one of the lampshades on it. Now I'm a packrat, I hoard things, especially tacky cheap weird stuff, and I've been passively looking for a lamp for a while now because the overhead light in my room is too bright and I need some more mellow lighting; but having had no money to speak of for several years now I haven't been able to get one. That situation recently rectified (I'm still poor but I have an actual income, and ironically all the employed people I know have been laid off) and faced with the prospect of a tacky lamp for two dollars and change I selected two shades and grabbed two lamps.

Oh neat I can see the filament of the lightbulb inside my lava lamp reflected in the ball of wax, which has still not thrown a bubble.

My purchasing two lamps for some reason befuddled my family, who found this somehow especially strange despite my wide range of eccentricities. After struggling with their overly short cords and lack of on/off switches I eventually dug out a multitap extension cord I had and bought a special switch you plug into the outlet then plug a cord into the switch (I sit next to the outlet, so it's easy to get at). I set them up on top of my upper keyboard (I recently set my two keyboards up one on top of the other to play them both at once) at either end.

Another item I've been sorely lacking for several years now is a lava lamp. My old one had orange wax that was permanently soft so the lamp didn't have to get very hot to get going, and one day when I still lived in my old room at home (where I now live again) it fell from its place on top of a dresser and shattered on the carpet, leaving an indelible stain which took many cleanings to even start to fade. Not only that it splattered all over my old keyboard (which I still have which is now the keyboard my lamps are sitting on), which I've never taken the time to clean properly, so there's still gunk and oil on and in various parts of it and several buttons stick.

Today I happened to be in Target and I found a (fairly small) lava lamp for ten bucks with purple fluid and orange wax, in my eyes the best color this particular brand comes in (though the clear fluid/black wax combo is intriguing), so finally I could replace my shattered orange mess of a lamp.

Tonight just before starting this entry I plugged in and set up the new lamp in-between the two dollar store lamps on my keyboard, tempting fate as this is the same keyboard that was befouled by my last lava lamp. I'm still waiting for it to throw a bubble but the wax is really getting riled up by now so I expect it shortly.