Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Embracing My High Maintenance Self


I never realized it before, but I think that I might be a little high maintenance. I mean, I am not saying that I need my sandwiches cut a certain way (although I prefer diagonal cuts to vertical), or that I need my shoes to be lined up any old way (although when I can see the tip of the shoe under the edge of my bed it is easier to find them), but in some ways, I think that I might be high maintenance. And the thing about it is, I think that the only thing worse than being high maintenance, is being high maintenance and not knowing it. I am sitting here in my office at my desk, realizing that I have been wanting to write a new entry for probably over a week now, and I never did it. Because I don't have any time to do it? Not really. Because I have had nothing to write about? Not at all. The real reason why I have not been writing is because I want to write in the comfort of my own apartment, and I want to do it at a desk. That's right, I am one of those freaks who actually likes to sit down at an actual immobile desk and use my mobile laptop to write. Lately I have just been taking an empty box and turning it on it's side to sit my laptop on, and that's fine for web surfing or watching tv online, but for writing something? No, no, no. I am waiting until I either have the money to go out and shop for a really nice desk, or until I find one on craigslist or at a resale shop that really speaks to me.

I was thinking about how when I write the old fashion way, with those silly things called a pen and a piece of paper, the type of pen and the type of notebook that I was writing in always effected how well the words flowed. That's probably why I have a collection of journals at home that each have about two entries in them, and the rest is blank. So I guess that this is just how that idiosyncrasy translated itself into the next phase of technologies' evolution. But what does this mean? Is this me being somewhat fussy, or do these types of things actually effect the quality of my writing? I remember a quote from the Sex and the City movie when Carrie is shopping for a desk, and she says something like "It's all about the desk. When I find the right desk, the writing will come." How much truth is there to that? I mean, it doesn't seem too crazy to think that the more comfortable the writer is the easier it is for them to write, does it?

At this point, I just have to wait and see. When I get the desk, I guess I'll find out if that was all my brain was waiting for, or if I was just being my regular lazy self. For now, I'll just embrace the idea that I am just too high maintenance to lower myself to writing the next great American novel on an upturned cardboard box.

*photo courtesy of thedailytee.com

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