One of my favorite journaling practices is LISTING THINGS I WANT. Things I want to have. Things I want to do. Who I want to be.
Funneling all of my focus into visions of good stuff helps drown out distractions from things I do not like or want, and sets my heading to go towards what I *do* want. Listing what I want is uncensored free-flowing dreamy planning, and clarifies what I really crave and deeply desire.
After journaling my wants almost-daily for a number of months, one item came up more than any other: DESKS AND TABLES. Surfaces for pleasure writing. Places to spread out, create, write, sort, organize, draw, plan, read and design. Sturdy clean hard platforms to stand or sit at: to concentrate and center writing, looking, learning, composing and planning.
As my vision of desks and tables expanded and crystallized and rose to the top of all of the things I want most, it got easier for me to make acquisition and spending decisions without hesitation or guilt. I knew that a new clean desk for pleasure writing was a worthy investment, and more important than other things I might kinda-want, but not really need.
THE GREY TABLE: MY FIRST BRAND NEW WRITING DESK
Desks and tables became a huge focus for me in sizing up other spaces — both public and private — I used or passed through: offices, coffee shops, libraries, and friends’ houses (or even just pictures posted on social media of other people’s homes and workspaces). I tried other people’s and businesses’ desks and tables on for size, and I charged The Grey Table I’ve been pleasure-writing on since November 2020 when I saw how people were setting up home-schooling and work-at-home stations because of the pandemic. I knew that $179.10 (plus tax and interest) was WORTH me having my first brand new, unused WRITING desk (as opposed to the only desks or tables I’ve bought new for myself as an adult: easily-dented composite-wood rigs designed for computer towers and monitors and keyboards rather than smooth surfaces for laying out pens and papers to center handwritten jobs).
The Grey Table has been great, but I still want MORE desks and tables. And at least something bigger. Something with more drawers. More solidity. Something with less-spindly legs. Something I can really hide behind, and hide more things within.
HOW I MET MY BIG BLONDE (and knew it was for me)
Because I knew The Grey Table was ultimately too small and I still wanted MORE big solid surface areas for writing, when I saw the desk my friend wanted to get rid of, I was 100% certain I wanted it. With two big stacks of internal storage, seventeen inches more breadth, and thirteen inches more depth, The Big Blonde is so much bigger than The Grey Table, I was not sure if it would fit, but I knew it was a worthy acquisition. I *want* my desk to be massive. I *want* my desktop to be broad and flat. I *want* my desk to support the weight of my entire upper body and a ton of heavy tomes without shuddering in resistance. I *want* my desk to impose itself in my space and take up more attention that anything else. I want My Desk to be DESTINATION FURNITURE; a whole location unto itself that I travel to every day: more than a large movable tool. A desk so big and heavy it has its own coordinates.
SPOTTED: big desk in middle of friend’s clutter they are eager to get rid of / give away
So now I am getting ready to move The Big Blonde from our friend’s house into the tiny cabin where The Grey Table currently resides. We were worried we’d have to take the door off the hinges to get it in, but my friend says the desktop comes off of the base so I think we can make it happen.
WHY DO I CALL IT “BIG BLONDE”?
Why do I call it The Big Blonde? Because, honey … it is that color and built like a brick shithouse. Because it fits with my long-time fantasy of having the noirfice of a pulp-fiction private dick. Because that’s one of the many ways Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer liked his women: BIG. And BLONDE.
The Big Blonde is not just a desk; it is a whole way of seeing the world. Of being served hot stale coffee in a diner at midnight, eating steak and eggs and hashbrowns, and commanding your story. It is a lifestyle secretary: a VERY personal assistant who knows all of your secrets and just what kind of kisses to apply to your big blue bruises.
Big Blonde is your old faithful reliable bottom-heavy bitch who will follow your drunk mean ass wherever you go and pray to god you make it through the night all right without judging you too cruelly for wherever the past fifty-seven sleepless hours took you. The Big Blonde has taken a few hard knocks and it shows, but there is nobody else you’d rather have by your side or under your heavy metal typer. If someone bursts into your office, you know she can take the full brunt of the bad guy’s weight when you break his goddamn back throwing the bastard against her thick unyielding surface.
Get ready baby … because P. M. Starr’s bringing your big blonde ass home. FOR KEEPS.
