where_do_you_write tender square my office is an open room: there are no doors, just two open doorways to enter the space. the smaller entrance is off the back and leads to the basement stairs and through to the kitchen; the larger entrance is the width of two doorways and looks out into the living room and dining room. i have a five-panel wicker room divider that i expand to fill the larger entrance each morning to give me (some) privacy as i work. it’s not the most ideal set up, but it gets the job done. my desk faces a south window that’s about a foot shorter in length than the rest of the windows in the house. it was once completely covered up by a shoji screen that i later removed so i could watch squirrels chase one another in the trees beyond. this room used to be the kitchen before the previous owners renovated the space. that my desk lives beneath that smaller window, where i’m certain the sink once was, conveys the sense of submerging into creativity, of attending to deeper depths here than how i move through other rooms of the house. i found my desk on the side of the road, years ago, when a neighbor posted it on nextdoor for free pickup after it didn’t sell at a garage sale. before i’d gotten it, i used a crappy ikea laptop table and desk chair for writing; it didn’t seem right to invest in something grander when i was just starting out—i didn’t know if my poetry would take me anywhere. but when i saw that desk, i knew it was meant for me, that this was a message from the universe to dream bigger than i had been. it’s a black, l-shaped ikea desk and the nesting table that extends from it has wheels so i can adjust the surface area of my workspace. my desk is fringed by tall, black, skinny bookshelves (also ikea) that are filled with poetry texts, books about creativity, and editing and writing guides. behind me are additional shelves in the same design and those are filled with all my cd’s (massively downgraded over the years) and music books. between those shelves are wooden cubbies with my record collection (which, sadly, gathers more dust than use), and on top of that, my cd player, record player, and a set of small speakers. i have a tribe called quest poster from the michael rapport directed doc “beats, rhymes & life” hanging above the audio equipment. the remaining walls are filled with some art (an abstract canvas michael bought me in primary colors to inspire; a print of radiohead’s “hail to the thief” album cover), a couple of poems (my mom made plaques one christmas that she gave to family members with pieces i’d written about my grandmothers—“pomodoro” and “the war bride”— and included photos of them as young women), my diplomas, a framed letter from barack obama congratulating me on becoming a us citizen, and a custom frame of one of my first poems published in print by “the louisville review.” i recently bought two cross-stitch patterns i plan to hang above my desk when they’re done, both of kevin malone from “the office.” in the first image, he’s sprawled out on the floor absolutely covered in a pot of chili he’s spilled everywhere (because life gets messy), and the other is a portrait of him with the quote “why say lot word when few word do trick” (because poetry be like that). in the corner of my office is a large vintage leather armchair and matching ottoman in a honeyed tone—a gift michael and i bought ourselves from an area thrift store to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. it’s a great place to read but i don’t use it nearly enough, though this could change when winter comes. the window beside the chair looks out into the backyard, which is stunning when covered with snow. one of my favorite things in my office: a hand-painted heart-shaped ornament that’s hanging from the window above my desk. it was sent through snail mail from my girlfriend annaliese on galentines this year and it reads “zero fucks.” 211005 ... tender square in thinking more about my “zero fucks” ornament, i had to take it down for a time after it was first gifted to me; i realized having it in the space where i worked on all my grad school and teaching responsibilities probably wasn’t the greatest vibe for me—i had fucks i still needed to give to get to the finish line. and so i stored it away until graduation. back when annaliese used to still live in ann arbor one of my frequent catchphrases was “guess how many fucks i give? negative five fucks.” this was a running joke between us when working at the thrift shop together. but in actuality, i am a person that gives many fucks. which begs the philosophical questions: how many fucks are too many fucks to give? how many fucks are too few? is the number of fucks required (or lack thereof) entirely dependent on situational circumstances? to figure out how many fucks are necessary, does that require giving fucks to calculate? 211005 ... kerry until recently i never used my phone to write, but now i spend too much time on the bus or train so i tap away on my google docs app. it isn't ideal but at least i jot down whatever i would have forgotten otherwise. late at night i write in my office at my drafting table, which is also where i draw. the walls are painted a green that looks like sea foam in the morning and glows darker as the day goes by. like every other room in the house the walls are covered in pictures and photos--a pastel portrait of me as a lizard done by iz when we were in college, a tattered anti-marijuana propaganda poster, a framed photo of patti smith taken by my dad, etc. the bookshelf in that room has all the books i loved as a kid and there's an antique blue and white turkish rug on the floor. if i'm writing in the early morning i sit at the island in the kitchen with coffee in my giant K mug and tap away at my computer and i can see the salvia bush and the italian fig in the patio and the white door leading to our alley, and the rose bush except i hacked it to pieces last week, and the silence in that room is beautiful. i used to keep tons of notebooks--i like the slim, soft-covered moleskines that you can fill up quickly--but lately i just carry them around and they remain mostly blank. but i might sit on my bed and scribble something in black pen. the walls in that room are pale purple-gray and there's a navajo rug on the faux hardwood floor and always an empty glass on the nightstand. ​and for some reason in my journals i always log the time, day of the week, weather, and temperature outside. when i was doing my mfa i mostly wrote at the library. i need the silence. but the libraries are still closed. 211005 ... unhinged on my phone on the bus in bed 211005 ... unhinged on the couch 211005 ... raze i have two desks. one of them is a flimsy little faux-oak joke that sits in a room upstairs, covered with cassette tapes and old typewriters and things i keep meaning to scan. the other desk is something my dad found twenty-five years ago when he got a tip about an office that was closing up shop and selling everything they had for next to nothing. for ten bucks he got this massive metal-and-wood beast that's the finest desk i've ever known. lightning could strike that thing and it wouldn't flinch. it's indestructible. years ago, i used to sit at this desk and write. i can't do that anymore. by the time we moved into this house fourteen years ago, the contents of its drawers filled about eight cardboard boxes. there are things in those drawers that have been there since i was twelve years old. lyrics, notes, doodles, instruction manuals for different pieces of musical equipment, headphones, pencil boxes from grade school, pens and markers both dead and still living, guitar strings, random trinkets, and who knows what else. those are just the drawers. the surface of the desk holds the guts of my recording studio. a saner person would use racks to organize their mic preamps, compressors, effects processors, power supplies, and other outboard gear. i wouldn't feel right doing that. all this stuff needs to sit on top of the desk, huddled together like a little community, so i can lean into it and be surrounded by its denizens. the place i do most of my writing (and blathing) is my bed. even now that it isn't the terminal disaster it used to be, my_bed_is_my_desk. i think it'll probably always be that way. 211006 ... unhinged in the lockerroom at work 211006 ... kerry in my head, almost exclusively. 230201 ... mcdougall At the end of my pen At the end of my finger tips Somewhere between the beginning and end of a thought 230201 what's it to you? who go blather from