Starting Fresh

My Precious
New Years. I really don’t like the holiday all that much. Too many people promising to do too many things they’ll never accomplish. Then there’s the big party where everyone stands in a cluster, counting down like something incredible is going to happen. They hit the count of one, and it’s still the same room filled with the same people doing the same things. It’s just one minute later. For me it’s simply a time for tearing up one out of every two checks because the date is wrong.

Despite my lack of enjoyment of the New Year, I’m still having a fresh start of sorts. I’m coming off a mega-vacation stint of three weeks. I have a new-to-me, cross between mod and government issue filing cabinet for my obsessive organizational needs, and — the best present a writer with a dodgy back could possibly get — a new desk chair.

The chair wasn’t a surprise gift, but it’s presence here in this house is still surprise of sorts. A few weeks before Christmas I began to complain about my old model. It was a ninety-nine dollar office supply store special, complete with loose screw, creaking hinges and shredding fabric. It was too short for my desk, and I ended up typing every day with either my hands way up in the air, or sitting on my foot like it was a booster chair until it fell painfully asleep. Despite these flaws, I did try to make do, even reupholstering the monstrosity for a fresher look. While it looked better, the new fabric only accentuated that random screw that insistently poked me in the ass all day long. Finally fed up, I announced my intention to head over to the office supply store for the crap-chair’s successor. That’s when the architect I married spoke up.

“Take a look at these.”

A web address was typed in, the mouse clicked, and then the angels’ choir began to sing as heavenly light shone down upon the screen.

Avery, meet the Aeron chair.

I drooled, I yearned, and then I dismissed outright. Anyone who’s ever seen one of these knows the cost. But, then the architect again spoke, this time uttering two words that changed everything — “Professional discount.” Yep. Because architects spec a company’s products for their big projects, they’re occasionally given substantial percentages off their own purchases. We picked one out together (ordering one of these things is like ordering a car), and three days before Christmas, it was sitting where it is now — in front of the computer with my butt firmly planted on it. I’m like Gollum with this thing, crouching possessively in it, stroking the arms and gazing lovingly at the shiny, shiny aluminum feet.

Now my holiday time is over. I’ve dug in my wood grain filing cabinet’s drawers for the character folders I’d stashed away during a cleaning frenzy two weeks ago. My space-age new chair is adjusted to scientific precision, and my wrists are now at an angle that would make the strictest typing teacher proud. To top it all off, I have a shiny silver notepad with my name emblazoned across the front — a gift from my parents. Now, if all that’s not enough to make this writer jump back in and bang out those last three chapters, I don’t know what is.