On the Desk

I've really been out of sorts the past several days, but (believe it or not) it's not all been due to Christmas.

Honestly, a lot of my frustration has been because I've metaphorically been a "man without a country," as my old, cheap, over-sized particle board desk of ten-plus years literally fell apart in my hands when I tried to move it six inches earlier in the week. The old thing (then with hutch) was a steal when I bought it ($100 from off some guy's driveway) and somehow made it through six major moves (not to mention a handful of the room-to-room variety in the midst of all those), but finally gave up the ghost just hours before we started our Christmas travels this year.

Needless to say, a happy camper I was not. It sounds stupid, I know, but I don't do well when I don't have a place to work. When my desk is a mess - or in this case, when I don't have a desk at alI - an overwhelming fear of never creating, accomplishing, or writing anything ever again washes over me and I spiral into a depression of Nietzschean futility that not even his superman could hope to overcome.

I confess I've always romanticized the idea of the desk. I still remember with great affection the first (and only) desk I had through my middle school and high school years - four full drawers below for clothes, a huge fold-down panel that served as the work area, and all kinds of slots and compartments inside the hutch. Another particle board jobbie, it finally broke down after seven years of hard use.

I can tell you about every desk at every place I've ever lived since. My desks at college were standard issue dorm desks, but they were solid and sufficed for what I needed at the time (the concept of desktop or laptop computers was non-existent then, so there was plenty of workspace). When I was on staff with The Navigators, I usually had a desk at the office, but I always had a desk at home as well.

At times my desks have had their own rooms; oftentimes, however, they haven't (as this one doesn't now). But having a room doesn't matter as much as having a desk - it is life and breath to me, and now that my new one is assembled and in place, it's hard to explain how good it feels to finally live and breathe again.

Thus, with no further adieu, let me introduce you to my new desk: the Studio RTA - Lake Point Computer Desk - super solid, classy looking, and a lot more efficient than my former (and bigger) desk. Thanks to Best Buy for having it on sale, to Mom and Dad for the Christmas money to buy it, to Megan for patiently enduring my whining until I got it, and to my nine-year-old for helping me put it together (she is amazingly persevering when it comes to home projects, working with me the full four hours it took to put together).

It's good to be home.