I'm looking at the man in the mirror. This isn't my choice. Standing in my master bath with the towel still damp from my shower hanging behind us, water droplets drying on the shower door, with a man who isn't my husband is strange enough. I'd like to at least be having a face-to-face conversation with this carpenter who's come to do fixing.  But he can't take his eyes off himself in the mirror.

My husband used to have this similar love affair with the mirror, when he was younger, closer to the age of this carpenter. He wouldn't even talk to me through the mirror by looking at me in the mirror. Whenever we stood talking in the bathroom, he would have eyes only for himself.  I stood by like a nosy neighbor, eavesdropping on the engaging conversation my husband was having with that dashing fellow in the mirror. Nowadays, we are sometimes a mirror menage a trois, my husband, his shaving-creamed reflection, and I, but mostly, my husband doesn't spend that kind of time in front of the mirror anymore, looking at himself, or me. Our priorities have changed, and I think that's okay.

If mirror love is a male trait, this would enforce men's reputation as the immature sex, getting stuck in the mirror fascination of babyhood.  Yet these males most certainly walk away from that mirror without giving even one additional second of attention to what they've seen. We females, however, can ruin entire days fretting about what the mirror revealed, the red pinprick of a potential broken capillary, the shadowing of an age spot on our jaw line, a droopier eyelid, a deepening of the jowl line.

I sure don't spend any extra time in front of the mirror. What woman over 40 does? I have a complex relationship with mirrors anyway. I remember being quite ill with a violent flu or food poisoning, I was never sure which, and recuperating in a friend's guest room on a weekend visit from college. The house was quite contemporary, and the entire wall of the bedroom was mirror tiles, including covering the bi-fold closet doors. I don't think I truly relaxed until I was well enough to leave and get away from myself, sick in bed and reflected, in pieces, every second in that wall, a virtual screen before this age of too many screens broadcasting too many images everywhere the livelong day.

I've read feng shui to start to unravel this complex power of mirrors, and have since stopped putting mirrors over dressers. Not a restful way to sleep, to be able to sit up and see yourself. I do have smaller mirrors situated so that one can always see the bedroom door from one's bed if the bed is not facing the door. This is comforting. Try it if you don't believe me. And the carpenter is in the bathroom this morning to repair the frame I have put around the huge mirror over our long bathroom counter because a frameless mirror is not good either, reflected images getting cut and slipping off into nothing.

So imagine my shock when I fell in love with Pottery Barn's new mirrored night table! Forgetting all the other mail, I stared and stared at the catalog picture, trying to figure out why I found this piece so attractive. Not for everyday maybe, but a vacation bedroom, a beach retreat. A bedside table that catches the light of the carefree day stretching joyously ahead? Maybe, but I think it will go on my husband's side...