I sit at an antique, patinaed wood desk that my great-grandfather used once upon a time. It has served me well as a writing desk for the four or so years that I have had it in my room. There are many objects on my desk, but I don't think most would call it cluttered. Then again, the things on my desk mean more to me than to anyone who may see it. But speaking to that case, I won't be showing you what's on my desk in this article; I will be describing everything to you. Maybe it'll be fun.
My laptop rests slightly left and back from the center of my desk. It only leaves if I want to read something at my desk without my laptop being in the way, but that doesn't happen much. I read a good bit, just not at my desk.
To the left of my laptop, I keep four important "tools." These are all black, gray, and white, and the begin in the back-left corner of my desk and move rightward. They are: a dry-erase marker, a stapler, a tape dispenser, and a pencil sharpener. Toward the front of the desk a bit from the eraser and stapler is a ceramic figurine of Snoopy leaping off of his dog house at Charlie Brown. Even closer to the front along that plane, you'll find a hand-carved wooden sea turtle I bought in Jamaica. To the right of those items are, currently, two scraps of paper with some notes written on them, plus a bottle of Noodler's fountain pen ink, in its box. The color? General of the Armies. It's a three-ounce bottle, which will last me a very long time.
On the other side of my desk, I have a desk organizer in the back corner. In it are some markers, Wite-Out, a large eraser, some thumb tacks, small paper clips, pencil-top erasers, dry-erase markers, scissors, some pencils, and a couple of pens. Closer to the front, near the edge, I have a carved, lidded bowl from Kenya. It has some interesting patterns and an elephant decorating its surface. Inside I keep guitar picks, mandolin picks, and a tie pin. In front of the bowl I have a coaster from Disney, and beside the bowl I have a pen and a mechanical pencil with my graduation date engraved upon their metal bodies. Toward my laptop from there, there is a mouse sitting on its mousepad, which is actually just a piece of paper that I write notes on. I like hand-written notes. Above my mousepad/beside my desk organizer, from right to left are: a painted, carved wooden seahorse from Mexico, a ceramic dragon from China, a plastic Mickey Mouse from a keychain, and a pewter minute man from Massachusetts. Last but not least, back and to the left from my minute man is my latest addition to my typical desk adornments, a small ceramic vase with two different patterns split across the two pi radians of its surface. Its interior is unpatterned royal blue.
I imagine you can tell a lot about a person by what that person has on their desk. Then again, it's not nice to assume things. (Insert winky emoji here.) My desk is where I write from, the vast majority of the time, and I think it probably shapes my writing, if only in small ways. Of course, it has shaped the writing of this article in quite major ways. Quite.
