Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The Desk

I'm writing to you from my new desk at home.



Big deal, right? I sit at a desk at work all day and I never wrote a blog about it. But this is different.

This is like the time I bought my first computer because I wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that before, but bear with me, I have a point. It's like the time I bought my Kindle because I wanted to read more. Both motives worked, by the way. I have a lengthy journal from those first few years of laptop ownership. Most likely because I didn't have the internet and all I could really do was write on the thing. And my Kindle has done wonders for my reading habits. I hate to put the thing down. In fact, I've bought "real" books in the meantime but I always return to the gadget.

This time, I bought a new desk because I want to blog more. My laptop and I are always in the recliner and I really don't write as much because of it. So I tell myself. Sometimes we (the laptop and I) migrate to the couch, but there are little fairies that live between the cushions who induce sleep. That's not good for productivity. The point is, at home I rarely sit at a table or desk while on the computer. I surf the internet in my chair. I pay bills in my chair. I watch funny videos in my chair. Why? It's comfortable and I can watch TV at the same time. And when I say "watch TV" I mean spend at least ten minutes trying to find something decent and virtually ignore it while I'm on the computer.

Let me back up a bit. I was not deskless. When we moved here, Pmo had no desk. So I let him use mine. He seemed to really want one and I just stacked stuff on it anyway. Several months ago, maybe even a year, Pmo decided to bring his desk up from his dad's house. At this point, we had two desks. So I rearranged the dog room/guest room/my room to house my desk again. But I pretty much went back to using it as counter space. You see, my former desk is odd for my needs. It has a built in shelf where you are supposed to sit. I'm guessing for a traditional desktop computer, this would be great. Monitor on top, keyboard below. Other stuff to the side. But you need a flat, open surface for a laptop. And where that flat surface is, there's a drawer and shelf underneath. Therefore, I can't really sit at it and work on the laptop. It's a bit backwards.

When I got it into my head that I "needed" a new desk (and I do that from time to time with certain things) we looked at a few consignment stores, Goodwill, etc., because I was hoping to find some secondhand awesomeness. But that didn't happen. And since I wasn't in any big hurry, I thought maybe we'd happen upon something some day or I would just forget about it. Then I saw a corner desk/small bookcase combo in the Target ad over the weekend and that was it. I was on the hunt again. Except when I got to the store, I decided the desk wasn't big enough even if I put the printer on top of the bookcase. So I came home with a traditional desk with drawers on the side but the entire surface is flat. No shelf. I didn't spend too much on it either, which is a plus. Pmo put it together for me. Now here I am.

Will it motivate me to blog more? Who knows? But I'm doing it now. Did a Y membership turn me into an avid exerciser? No. Does eating right for a day or two transform me into a health nut? Not hardly. All I can do is try. I talk myself into these things and see how far they take me. I'm pretty content with the new desk so far. It's a dark, espresso color so it doesn't match the oak furniture that's in this room, but that's okay. Now I just have to go through all of the papers and files I used to stack on top of the old desk and organize them. That was also part of the motive: to get organized back here. Like I need a reason to do that. I can't function unless my to-do lists have their own to-do lists.  

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