A New Desk
More than three decades back, I commissioned a custom “stand-up” desk. Over the years, I’ve hauled this piece around with me, in and out of the student barrio in Arizona, eventually Austin, including a trailer park, and now on to its current home, here.
A professor related an animated tale about a certain modern English poet who wrote, while on his feet, on top of the diminutive refrigerator. Standing up, working longhand, and from travels, it’s easy to understand that the icebox, to me, a refrigerator, to them, how that would only be three or four feet tall, and in the cold damp of Wales? The little humming of the unit’s cooler would serve as a harmonic backdrop for the alcoholic’s background. I liked the idea of the stand-up desk, sized and suited for my first compact Macintosh computer — the ubiquitous Macintosh Plus.
The dimensions, well, the footprint is two feet deep and three feet wide. In its original design, a smaller Apple Macintosh (corded) keyboard was to rest on the angled surface, as well as a mouse of some sort, and at the time, I preferred an optical mouse with a laser-like light, as that offered greater precision. The top, a horizontal shelf, was measured to accommodate a hard drive enclosure and the height was custom fit to me, barefoot, with the original-style of older compact Macintosh sitting at my eye level, when resting on top of that hard drive enclosure.
In the last three decades, or more, sizing standards have changed. The original influence for that desk and its design?
I wrote my first novel-length manuscript at that desk, more than three decades back. That desk holds memories.
Computers change, and now there’s a wide-screen monitor hooked up to a second Mac-Mini, which, even now, is stored in the accompanying credenza. In that cabinet’s original design, the back of the cabinets are cut out for feeding paper into a dot-matrix printer, again, sized for that original Apple hardware. I would keep a case of paper into the cabinet, and then snake the paper out of the back, straight into the printer, a continuous feed of draft paper.
All of this is done in tasteful Arkansas, old-growth walnut, a dark hardwood with hints of color through sap wood and burls, but not much texture, and firm enough to withstand the years, heavy, naturally dark wood, resplendent in its original colors, and aging gracefully.
A New Desk
Standards change. Now, the most ergonomic of designs is a flat surface, at a variable height. I found several kits, and really, just a set legs that are hydraulically or electrically adjusted with space for a similar piece of heavy wood for a flat surface.
In my cursory, late-night searches, thus far, I’ve only found kits that require a desktop surface to be at least 42 or 48 inches, with room for more length and breadth.
While my original “computer” desk was 5 feet long, the best one, now with Bubba, was a full door in size, 3 feet wide and 7 feet long. All walnut, at that. I think it was about a 27° angle, a self-dumping design. Likewise, my current stand-up desk, from the same source? Half of it is self-cleaning. No accumulation of morning coffee mugs, no half-drained water bottles.
Minimal and minimalist.
The idea of a new desk came out of a morning meditation. Looking around, the linked kits, they shrink down to a size that would fit. But do I want another project?
Part of the design of my original desk? Part of the inherent ideals that went into the construction was a life-long piece of furniture.
A New Desk
My exploration included a trip to a lumber place, the big-box building supply store. No luck. I found plenty of wood, but nothing that grabbed me, and suddenly, the thought of sizing, cutting, and then finishing with sanding, stain, and sealers?
The project quickly lost its appeal.
Thoughtful, well-designed tools always work best, even as they age.
Observing that, in the recent image of the desk, I noticed that there are finally worn spots from where my hands rest on the keyboard and track pad.
the Portable Mercury Retrograde
