Chronicle search for "desk" (2000-2003)

The other day, Jack brought over a book about writers and their desks, photos with short autobiographical commentaries. Jack said it would be a good writing exercise, I agreed. I thought for a minute then recalled that I had written about my desk and bookshelves many times. I used to write a lot more than I do now.

Chronicle 20000212: On my desktop notepad, I have noted: "Mustn't a social person be insane to be happy in an insane society?" which evolved into "Can a social person be happy and sane in an insane society?"

20001215: My roommate comes back around 11:30pm and he’s got five other people with him, all drunk. He starts pouring them shots, giving them beers and smokes. At the moment I’ve left them, they’re talking about lame shit they saw on MTV and other useless garbage. One of those guys asks me, "So what do you do?" And I just answered, "I’m still trying
to figure that out." Yeah. That was a good answer; I'm too used to just spilling my guts and telling strangers too much information about myself, I’m trying to delete that characteristic. (I look over my desk, and I see a Rolling Rock bottle cap. I don’t remember drinking any of those lately. Oh well, I’ve got a parking permit for the track that’s way old too.)

Chronicle 20010130: I want to retreat within my skull for days at a time, just transform my body into an indestructable statue and let me just think for a week. “Rock on.” Like flame on, like Human Torch. Well, that’s a nice thought, I’ll save it for later.

Chronicle 20010901: I sit in this chair and type at this desk while outside clouds drift and the sun shines. I know I’m in a state of depression but it doesn’t help to know. I don’t know what to do, or how to do it, I’m just another fucked up guy in this fucked up world trying to get by.

Chronicle 200111: Beat the shit out of one of your thighs. Three punches to the top as you sit down, a double-sided punch just above your knee and then a huge one to your hip that makes your leg jump and hit the desk almost knocking off your glass of water. (The writer, the river, writes in second person too sometimes. Third, second, he’s been in first for so long.) You need to shift gears sometimes. Like now. The river smokes at noon. ‘Smoking in the sun,’ he writes. But he spends his day inside, smoking and drinking, it’s just now only 3 PM and he just got out of the shower after drinking three beers with his brother Mike and friend David. They are next door playing video games now. The writer drinks with his friends or drinks alone. He sits at his desk and types, drinking from a nearly empty beer bottle, he clinks it with an empty in respect for the past. He is drunk and is planning on getting drunker. He’s got some Bacardi Limón in the freezer and some Slice in the fridge. Plus mad beers. The writer sits at his desk with two beers and some chips. It’s midnight, now technically Tuesday. We’ll stay where we are. I’m comfortable, the writer loosens his belt to get more comfortable, go ahead with whatever you need to do, we’ll wait. He’s yawning but he put on a sweatshirt so he’s in it for the long haul. It’s 12:37 AM, he’s buzzed but actually more tired than anything. Legs say go get horizontal. Eyes say stop looking at letters and screens. Hands say let us stop this useless repetition. Nose says pick me, ass says wipe me, hair says cut me, muscles say hurt me, joints say crack me, skin says tattoo me, mouth says make me smile. Eyes say please.

Chronicle 200112: I want to build a writing desk with chains and cuffs for either your hands or feet or maybe just one limb, whatever, but yeah you lock yourself in and you can't leave till hmm, I don't know…you could have some sort of lock that the computer opens only after so many words or so much time. That would be a cool torture. I'd come prepared with beers but pissing would be troublesome.

(As an expirement, I wrote nothing but crappy poems during 200202.)
Look around my desk
The computer screen stands tallest
Then the portable stereo and an empty beer bottle,
A few knives, some coins, scissors, stapler,
Cell phone, house phone and answering machine,
Pens, keys, cassette tape, Scotch tape, Kleenex, ChapStick,
My wallet, some stray bills, bottle caps, paper,
CD cases, movie stubs and business cards, toys,
Magazines, books, the keyboard, the mouse.
And a little squeezy ball that's supposed to look like Earth.
I throw the ball against the wall,
I bounce it off the posters of the universe.
I used to have a Zeus toy standng above my computer screen,
It was good to have someone watching over me,
Even if he could throw lighting down—
Well he couldn't really of course, but sitting here
At my desk
I think a little bit too much—
It's my own private library and sanitarium.

Amazing Poem, #0001
Decided to write an amazing poem,
Sitting here surrounded by papers and pens and paper clips…
I've spent my life sitting at desks like this.
Some books and some drinks, some continuous music,
Some phone calls and some possible plans.
And nothing…
Just nothing. McDonalds, beer, liver pain.
Boogers, pimples, ear wax, shit, piss, blood, sweat, tears.
Don't forget eye crust, spit, plaque, and all the juices.
Give me a cybernetic body, give me a cybernetic mind.
Burps, farts, quiefs, scent glands, breath.
Shed hair, dead skin, and all that other shit I already said…

200203: I cleared off my desk by just pushing everything to the floor. It feels good. Sure, now my feet are amidst many papers and I have to sort through it all before my chair wheels over it. It is important paperwork but ultimately it is only paperwork. So I take a few extra weeks to pay a bill and so I have to pay $30 more, maybe, well life's like that. Fuck.

Chronicle 200205: I looked around my desk and saw the beer which I'd taken from the Second Wind, Joe's Place. I took a swig. I wrote some shit to Jack online, took another swig. And another. Listened to some Eminem. Chatted with Jack online, whatever. I kind of talked shit, told him to write more, he sent me two stories because of that. I'm about ready to puke. It's 3:12am.

200208: I come back here, to my damn desk. My desk is a beautiful mess. Books are stacked to stop the blinds from blowing. There are water-proof spots and stable places, plus free zones for change or such. Pens and lighters and paper and blades everywhere. Trinkets, cool shit.

Chronicle 200301: Ryan FitzGerald sits at his desk. A sound comes from his throat, perhaps a hiccup but its solitary nature suggests it to be a burp. He looks from the keyboard up to the screen and makes some small changes to his last written sentence. He scratches his goatee. Things are pretty dull here in Ryan's home, he has lots to entertain him or even occupy him without entertainment. School work seems ever present, plus laundry, filing, paying bills and other bookkeeping, literal bookkeeping, comics and literature if a distinction is to be made. There are thousands of comics downstairs that could be organized. A few boxes were alphabetized but they were shuffled through quite a bit, then the newer boxes are mostly chronological, new comics just being stored wherever there's space. Wow, thinks Ryan, I've found a way to write in first person while still writing in third person. He kind of jumps up but remains sitting, he furious types, if one can type furiously, and he shakes his head a bit while he stops as if to scan words inside his head or tell himself not to stop, maybe even to look about the mess of his desk, but not in the slow pondering entirety that he normally does, but in a sort of frantic scattered way where he doesn't really see anything he just looks. Ryan sits at his desk, minutely shakes his head, almost frowns, but just swallows it down. His stomach growls, telling him he's been neglecting himself. Burp. Two beers, some microwaved canned spaghetti, some sausage, some bread, carrots and dip, Ryan is back.

Chronicle 20030708: I don't know (for certain) why I'm not writing. I'm on the path but I've set up camp. I need to get archeological on my desk! Start digging, sorting, filing.

Chronicle 200308: Another Friday night at the PB Pub, after another full day of beer on the beach. The keyboard is not working with me. I'm adjusting. A photographer would capture an image of me balancing this remote keyboard on my lap, my legs propped up on one side of my desk, leaning back in my chair wearing a tank top or "wife-beater" and some mesh shorts. Just tryin' to chill. Annoyed by the radio commercials— Where do I start? Now is 1:57am Saturday morning or Friday night, you call it. I went to the Pub tonight, sat and observed my fellow humans, tried to interact but just sat back and watched. Talked to some but really mostly listened. Here I sit, or lounge in the posture previously described, and slowly peck at the keys. Clicking the delete key occasionally and burping out poisonous vodka Redbull fumes.