I am not a desk person. I own a desk, but I use it as little as possible, for paying bills and such, and I never put my computer on it. For I am the ultimate laptop person, and I adore being able to write in bed, on the floor, on the grass (well, not right now).
These winter days, my writing spot is on the living room sofa, close to the stove. The big dogs sprawl nearby--right now Wolfie is sleeping with his head on my foot. Bisou, whom I've started calling the Red Baroness, flies up onto the sofa and..wait a minute, where's the lap? She's a lapdog, and she's just had dinner. She feels a nap coming on and she's looking for a lap, but there is a computer on it.
Bisou is not easily discouraged, so she burrows and insinuates and next thing I know she's ensconced under my right elbow, every inch of her body in contact with my thigh. "Poor thing," I think to myself "she must be cold," though how a dog who plows happily through two-foot snowdrifts could be cold a few feet from a roaring fire I cannot imagine.
I go to the hall closet and retrieve my precious sheepskin and spread it on the sofa next to where I'll be sitting. "Here, Bisoulette," I urge, patting the wool, "Lie down here and be comfy." I sit down, start typing, and my spell checker goes crazy. It seems that I'm making lots and lots of typos, all with the right hand: Bisou is once more under my elbow, her entire body pressed against my leg. Seems there's no comparison between the comforts of a sheepskin and my jeans-clad thigh.
I push her away gently (I'm not a monster!), lower my elbow, holding it tightly against my waist, and try to recapture my train of thought. A minute later, the typos start. She's back!
But it's not her fault, is it? Centuries of obsessive breeding have produced a dog who is irresistibly attracted to the human lap, and Bisou is just following the dictates of her DNA, which coincide exactly with the job description I drew up for her. After all, if I didn't want a dog who would insist on full body contact when at rest I could have gotten one of those non-cuddly breeds--a sled dog, say, or a Pharaoh hound.
Clearly, I'm the one who's going to have to adjust. I'll have to learn to type with the right elbow held high, to accommodate Bisou's thorax. In the meantime, if you notice more than the usual number of typos in these posts, please bear with me.
The Shippers
3 weeks ago