Disrespected Writerly Requirement: A Good Chair

When I write my very first set of acknowledgments for whatever book I publish or release or whatever, I will include a fountain of gratitude for a good goddamn chair. I will praise the manufacturer to high heaven and back. I will do all of this because apparently what I have now is incredibly substandard.

Backstory: when leaving my Brooklyn apartment in 2007 I sold a number of very comfortable desk chairs. I regret that, but don’t know how I’d have supported saving them. In my 2 most recent apartments, my writing chair was a chair given to me by a friend and an oak dining set chair, respectively. In my new place, I tried to get an ergonomic yet fun chair… and now my back is paying the price for it.

I’d already known the importance of a desk setup that matched what I wanted. In 2004 I had fallen in love with a trestle-based IKEA desk, where the height of the trestles was adjustable and the structure was open and airy. Last time I went to an IKEA, they didn’t have the ones I wanted, and made the logical decision that trestles were trestles, and chose some white laminate ones with shelves. Sadly, those blocky, a-frame-house trestles simply weren’t a substitute for the workhorse-style ones I have now. I could probably use a desk with drawers, but in the meantime I adore my glass-and-trestle mockup. I had this same setup from 2004-2007 – it suits me and even though I couldn’t find it at the time, I’m grateful IKEA kept carrying both the desktop and the trestles.

But ye gods, the CHAIR. I need another chair!

Back in 2006 I got a simple Staples chair. Useful, comfortable, supportive. I sat in it a lot. I wrote in it a lot. But yknow, it was over $100. Not feasible when I was moving out of Queens, not feasible when I was paying back money I’d borrowed to move out, and not precisely feasible now.  What I’ve got isn’t working, though, and my back is paying the price. I hear writers talk of writing in recliners when they’re done with their desks, and I’m definitely thinking about it…

Oh Virginia. Little did I know that when you spoke of a room of one’s own, that room included a chair that suited our body…