The Writer's Desk

It's complicated, but my desk is in a closet in our house.  My desk, inherited from my grandfather -- who was also named John Burridge -- has been a part of my life since the late 1970's.  It's oak, with a white Formica top.  A large top drawer spans the breadth and width of the desk.  It's about three inches tall -- now that I'm thinking about it, I should get three or four unused, medium sized pizza boxes to use as interior project trays.  Two smaller drawers on either side of the chair well are almost but not quite wide enough to hold a ream of paper, so they end up storing CDs.  And... junk stuff knick-knacks office supplies. The drawers are painted purple on the inside (did I mention I've owned the desk since the late 1970's?).

It just fits inside the closet.  This is good and bad.  It's good, because I can close the closet doors and viola! no office clutter.  It's bad because there's about three feet of dead space on either side of the desk.  Dead closet space equals a giant junk drawer.  Also, the closet door trick increases the likelihood that I'll crack open the closet, thrust a stack of whatever office supplies onto my desk, and then close the door. 

About every six months the closet's inefficiency gets to me and I try to reconfigure the closet so that I have a productive working space.   The latest incarnation involved cinder blocks on the desk with a plywood shelf.  The collegiate shelf worked wonderfully for holding the volumes of books I have borrowed (Hi Nina!)  and checked out from the library.  But the shelf displaced the pre-LCD computer monitor.  And I found myself needed an ergonomic stand for my laptop. 

I think when I can use the computer by typing on my pants and what I'm working on lights up on my glasses, I'll be fine.  Then I could turn the closet into a reading room....