Ass Meets Chair

July 31st, 2010Blog1 comment

After a dozen years, my chair is finally giving out. This is my work chair — the chair I sit in when I’m crouched over my computer writing. I got it at Ikea before I had written my first screenplay, my first full length stage play, before all of that stuff — and now it’s finally giving out.

I noticed this problem starting to occur about five years ago. Screws kept falling out of the bottom of the chair. I would studiously screw them back in — I even keep a screwdriver on my desk for this purpose. Over the years this would occur with greater and greater frequency. It didn’t affect the performance of the chair — there was never any danger of the thing completely falling apart, which I suppose is a testament to Ikea engineering — but it went from initially irritating to habitual. Just another weird thing that needed to be done every now and then in order to keep on writing.

Now the chair’s cushion is well compressed and there’s a hole worn in it that is metastasizing with increasing speed. The arm rests are wobbly. The chair-sitting experience is rapidly deteriorating. It’s time to get a new chair.

I usually don’t anthropomorphize things, but I’m sad that this chair is going away now. In a meeting someone recently told me that I’ve just started my mid-career phase — I’m no longer a beginner or emerging writer anymore. So this chair was essentially my baby chair. The chair with training wheels on it. Having just typed that, I think I’ve just decided to hold onto this chair instead of throwing it out. However, it’s going to have to go into a corner or something. And I still need a new chair.

I’ve been looking at one of these. My goal is to get a chair that will last me another 12 years, taking me through my mid-career phase and into my curmudgeon phase. I figure that it’s worthwhile to spend a lot of money on something that I use every day, for hours a day. Also this chair will make me feel like I’m on the bridge of a space ship, and that’s a worthwhile thing too.

I wonder if this new chair will affect the geist of my work. I have a feeling that it won’t. I’m always a little worried about changing the variables of my work. But inevitably, any good writing concerns change and transformation. So change needs to happen no matter what.

Yes, the old chair’s going to go into the corner. It’ll be like a trophy — something that I can glance at for rememberance’s sake. I think I’m even going to leave the hole in its cushion.

Actually, scratch that — I’m gonna get the hole fixed. It’s an eyesore.