You're Lookin' At Country.

It's officially happening. After years of wondering what--if anything--I would ever come to collect, I have finally become the proud (but slightly sheepish) collector of lots of random stuff. You know, like LPs, copper kitchen tins, pennywhistles, and knitting needles.

But also? Hurricane lamps.

Granted, I inherited my first one. It was my great-grandmother's, and it's really pretty, but it has a big crack in the glass fuel tank and therefore isn't safe to use. But I was somewhat hooked on the idea of kerosene lamps from setting that one on my desk and just staring at it. Without lighting it, my mom also taught me how to use a kerosene lamp by demonstrating on this one. Moving the wick up and down, adjusting the glass chimney. Stuff like that.

My next one was a little red thing I bought at an antique store. It's not an antique. At all, actually. But it looks like one, and the tank and stand are red glass, and it's so cute and little and it works quite well! It's ALSO sitting on my desk, on a stack of old books. I use it occasionally, when I'm feeling nostalgic for a time I wasn't even alive for.

Today, I inherited another one. It's huge. And green. And it was my mom's. And I'm kind of in love with it. But I can't light it until I've cleaned it out first. It still has kerosene from the 70's swimming around in it. Weekend project, maybe?

Seriously, someday my house is going to be full of kerosene lamps, inside and out. On the kitchen table, out on the porch, lining the stairs. Everywhere.

Yeah, some people collect candles. I collect kerosene lamps. Why not?

Tonight's movie: Coal Miner's Daughter, the biopic about Loretta Lynn starring Sissy Spacek. I've always liked Loretta Lynn. I'm not really a fan of country music, but one has to respect the classics, and Loretta Lynn is a classic. Besides, she was on the Muppet Show twice and when I was a kid that meant she was on the a-list. The movie was very well done, and Sissy Spacek was thoroughly un-creepy (I've always been scared of her since "Carrie"), and Tommy Lee Jones was actually...kind of handsome? Really? Yeah, I know!

I'm off to go light a kerosene lamp and do a little strummin' and singin'. And droppin' my g's everywhere, apparently...

-The (G)LS
PS: See what I did up there? Dropped g? Yeah...yeah, I'm hilarious...