When I moved into my very first apartment, teetering above the alley between Franklin and Laurel Streets, I had pretty limited furniture. A desk, a bed. A kitchen table. One rickety chair bequeathed from a friend, and a couch. The chair situation was probably my most dire problem, as chairs are pretty vital and necessary pieces of furniture. Guests sit on them, you stand on them to hang high artwork, you sit on them when you eat at the table…they’re just necessary.

Over time, people became aware of the fact that I needed chairs, and they started trickling in, bit by bit. Two of the Czechoslovakian folding chairs from my father’s house, so fragile that you needed to sit on them very precisely and avoid breathing. One hall tree. A few standard kitchen chairs. A decaying wingback. At one point, I had 22 chairs, which stuffed the house so thoroughly that it was like a gauntlet, and the chairs became sort of a running joke.

They just kept coming, and coming, and coming. And finally they stopped arriving, and I sifted through them, kept the ones I liked, and bequeathed the rest to goodwill. I brought the chairs with me when I moved, and then when I moved to San Francisco, I left most of them at my father’s house, or in storage in my old house, because Puff already had chairs, and it seemed silly to start the multiplication of the chairs all over again.

So, when I moved back home, I had, again, no chairs, except for Mr. Bell’s armchair. And because someone was now living in my old house, I couldn’t exactly nip back and retrieve my furniture. (And other goods left in storage there.)

This house is much smaller, so it’s probably good that I don’t have chairs, but now the parade of stools has begun. When I moved in, I had two stools, both of which I had used as stands to hold various objects in the old house. And there was a stool waiting for me, which I kept because I eat at a little counter by the door, and it was roughly the right height.

However, it was a real pain when guests came over, especially when I invited more than two people to dinner, because one of the stools was too frail to really sit on, and the stool that came with the house was crappy, so usually someone would end up sitting on the ball, which wasn’t very comfortable. So I picked up a couple more stools at Rossi’s, bringing the total stool population to five: three at the counter, one in my bedroom, where it stands in as a lamp table, and one frail rickety inherited stool which I stashed in the loft.

Then, Loki broke the ball, so I have nothing to use at my desk. And I decided to replace my desk with something smaller, and ended up with a high table which came with two stools. I think I have officially crossed the line into the house of stools from the house of chairs, and it’s all my fault. At this point, I’m hoping I don’t work my way up to 22 again. I seem to be cursed with a fate of excess seating, which is especially ironic since I so rarely entertain.

What will it be in my next house, I wonder. Couches?