During the pandemic when I worked from home, I sat at the dining table in my apartment (usually across from my roommate Luisa). When lockdown (somewhat) ended, it occurred to me that I could just as easily do the same for when I needed a place to write. It wasn’t the same thing as having an office or a writing room, but it could have worked. It was fairly spacious, the apartment had beautiful natural light and airy high ceilings. And plus, the coffee was way cheaper than any shop I’d yet discovered.
But try as I might, I could not make it work.
Ever since I’ve had the ability to throw my laptop in a bag and drive somewhere, I have become almost physically incapable of accomplishing any significant amount of writing within the confines of my own home. I am perpetually parked elsewhere, pretending I need the white noise of strangers around me to write when the reality is I always have my headphones in so I can’t even hear them. I guess, white noise or no, something about strangers and being in a public space holds me more accountable than my own self-discipline.
I write this because I don’t quite have my own writing room yet, but I do find myself living in a space I plan on being for a while (ha!), which has enough space to at least have a designated writing table. Or, a table I can write at that’s not in the same room I’m usually hanging out in. And I find myself wondering if I’m actually going to use it at all. Today I’m forcing myself to because I’ve already spent enough of my day off throwing money at the local economy and it’s time to be indoors where I can’t do any further damage. In future, though? The jury is still out.
Because I’ve been such a good little consumer lately (all thrifted, vintage, or marketplace’d), here are a few things I’ve bought lately and a few that I’ve passed on but still think about enough to potentially go back and get.
I Made a Mistake: A 1960’s American Airlines stapler, which, as my sister pointed out, had likely stapled together thousands of paper boarding passes during its time at an American Airlines airport gate in Boston (or so we assume based on the hand-written tag). It still stapled remarkably well because old things are almost always better than new things, and when you did staple with it, the experience was a cool 10/10 on the Satisfying Things to Do with Your Hands scale. It was $35 and honestly I would rather have that stapler than the $35 I have because I did not buy it.
No Ragrets: A Lane cedar chest from the 1960’s, complete with faux drawers and brass handles for said faux drawers. I spent twenty minutes going through a bag of mystery keys with the saleswoman before we realized it had a fake lock that you just pushed in like a button to open. The chest is in the living room, already housing all of my old notebooks and high school journals, as well as a stack of blankets and the fisherman’s sweater I got Aaron for his birthday even though we’re at least a month away from even vaguely fall-esque weather. (It was 95F/35C on the day I bought it. Ew.)
I Made a Mistake: A vintage Heiwa Habataki Pachinko machine (Google it, please), which for the record, only one person on my Instagram poll thought I should not buy. It had superb colors (think salmon-y pinks, neon greens, creams, yellows, and metal details, since I bet you did not Google it), reminded me of Plinko from The Price is Right (and thus of my Grandma P), but served no real purpose. As our home is in no place to purchase $200 items that are purely for display (even if Aaron said he was pretty sure he’d be able to get it working again, yay for handy humans), I had to say no. I still think of it once a week.
No Ragrets: A ceramic fruit bowl that was an impulse purchase when buying a set of jars for the tea and coffee stored on our kitchen countertop. It was sitting right at the cash register (what a funny way to describe a white Square unit and an iPad) and something about it said it needed to come home with me. Now it sits at the center of the kitchen table and is 90% responsible for reminding me to buy (and consume) fruit, since as nice as it looks on its own, it looks twice as nice when filled with apples.
What else has been happening? Well. Some potentially REALLY exciting stuff. And some already exciting stuff. For example, I’ve taken on a digital volunteer project for an arts center. It’s been nice flexing my old not just a shop muscles and being back in Mail Chimp again because nothing brings my younger self quite as much joy as creating a newsletter. (Honestly. Starting around age 7, one of my favorite hobbies was creating materials for fake businesses that I would make up and then do nothing with because what are you going to do with a promotional brochure for the Electronic Master Club, Kathy? You are seven and that company does not exist.) So even though this is just a temporary project, it’s been great to have in the background, and there will hopefully be more to come. If nothing else, at least the Arts Center is real and can go on LinkedIn. Thanks for nothing, Electronic Master Club.
And the potentially exciting stuff? You’ll have to wait. (Just like me. I would share if I could.)
I suppose that’ll do for now, kitchen table. I’ll take these 980* words and call it a sweet victory.
*This was 831 on my first go. Credit is due to the Best of 2012 Spotify Playlist that got me here.
write me well 