Wednesday, December 21, 2016

The Chair: A Documentary

I had this idea a few years ago. It will remain one of my many unrealized notions. I have offered it to others and you, dear reader, are free to purloin it, too.

It would be a documentary film. It would be called "Chair." One would interview people of a certain age or those who are disabled and must spend time in a small space with things within reach.

The interviews would be cut up and interspersed with others as the participants explored similar things nearby. Imagine me, in the red chair to the left, and my husband (the long-suffering FFP) in the yellow chair at the right.

Yes, I read a lot of newspapers in my chair. I will leave the days' papers on the dining table to my right until the evening although I'll often bring them to my chair, get the lap board down there between the couch and chair and work a puzzle. The ones I haven't read pile up on the little rolling end table to my right. I also have my water or coffee there a lot of times. Or, in the evening, maybe a Manhattan mixed by FFP. As I read them I toss them on the couch. We don't have a lot of company so we use the couch arms and couch for piling things up to have them nearby. Our lap blankets are there in the winter. (They go inside the rolling end table in the warm weather.) When the pile of papers on the couch gets voluminous I take it to the bin we use to recycle paper. On the arm of the couch, I usually keep a paper notebook, various pens, an iPad. There is a Flash connector charger plugged in behind the couch and I can easily reach the plug. I usually put my iPhone here when I'm in the chair. Shoes come off when I go into the chair so there are sometimes one or two pairs on the floor. When this picture was taken, there were a book and a magazine on the couch arm. I think FFP offered these as ones I should read. We have a universal remote for the entertainment center across the room. It is usually by one of our chairs. I often keep a box of Kleenex between the couch and the chair as well as a trash can.

Imagine FFP in his chair. Quite a selection of books queued up or in progress. Magazines, too. He has a lamp, a lapboard, Kleenex, and will often have a cup of tea or coffee.

We really don't spend all our days ensconced in our chairs And the people in the movie who spend more time in their 'nests' will have even more things, won't they?. Prescription drugs, for example. A land line phone.

And it all tells a story, but, admittedly, not a very interesting one!

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