I searched for many of these things myself, because there was pleasure in doing so. Whenever I looked at the furnishings or houseplants or wall hangings while watching an episode, I imagined myself as one of the characters on the show—Janet Wood, maybe, or Chrissy Snow—idly searching for the perfect item to complement the living room as a young twenty-something in 1977. I weaseled my way into the characters’ heads and climbed into their reality, inside their very skin, and tried to think as they did. Sometimes, when studying a piece of art from the apartment—say, F. X. Leyendecker’s The Flapper print that appeared in nearly every single episode in the series—I gazed at its image for long minutes, trying to figure out what, exactly, appealed to the roommate who might have chosen it, in this case probably serious Janet Wood. Was it the contrast between the joyful, brightly colored image and the sad story of the artist—a gay man in the early 1900s who, overshadowed by his brother, a much more famous and accomplished artist at the time, committed suicide by morphine at age forty-eight? Was it the composition? Was it the general theme? Did she love butterflies, or the metaphor of a butterfly? Did she have a random experience as a child watching an exotic swallowtail flit across her path one summer day, and did the ghost of its beauty subconsciously guide her down the aisle of the secondhand store and toward The Flapper? The artwork itself was a pun. A 1920s flapper dressed in a gauzy costume floated in front of an anise swallowtail butterfly that was huge, almost looming, and her outstretched arms mimicked the widespread wings of the butterfly. And “Life” was merely a coincidence—the illustration was used as the cover of a Life magazine in February 1922. But the word LIFE emblazoned above the image had a suggestive effect. Was this life? A bright explosion of youth and beauty? A pun? A joke?

I decided that Janet, sensible but unsentimental character that she was, probably just thought it was pretty, and maybe on a deeper level she appreciated the all-American Life magazine connection as well as the art nouveau influence; many of the art prints that appeared in Apartment 201 in the early seasons were of this style, and I liked imagining that most of the pieces were chosen by Janet . . . thoughtful, cohesive décor seemed like a Janet thing.

And then there was the question of origin. Where did the print come from? What was it like, that day she first saw The Flapper? Was it something she’d brought with her to LA from her childhood home in Speedway, Indiana? No, that didn’t seem right. I reasoned that if it had been something of childhood importance, it would have been hung in a more personal space, like her bedroom.

I imagined myself as Janet, sauntering through a secondhand thrift shop in Santa Monica in the early winter months of 1977, the weather chilly and cloudy, the store dim and musty, its long aisles cluttered with tchotchkes, old appliances from the fifties and sixties, things from her parents’ and her grandparents’ houses, an old 1940s-era sewing machine, chipped crockery. So many earth tones of brown and dull greens, burnt oranges and the occasional burst of red. And the feeling of discovery, of wonder. For only a few weeks ago she had moved across the country! A thousand miles away from the Midwest, to the golden city of California! And here she was, Janet Wood, a few bucks in her pocket from her new job at the flower shop, choosing the art pieces for her new apartment.