We Should All Be Working In Aprons

Chefs do it, artists do it, why can’t writers?

I write in bed.

(It is a beautiful library, I do love it all 5 times a year I visit to print scripts)

I know, I know, I go to a beautiful school with a beautiful library there for the express purpose of being a quiet place to work. But I don’t work in the quiet. I usually have a record playing, or Doctor Who scores, or, most often, Netflix playing in another tab.

If I were to write in the library it would require getting out of bed, putting on tights, then pants, then probably my binder, then a flannel, then a number of ponchos and scarves, then my combat boots, then packing my very heavy weighted blanket and laptop and filling up my yeti cup. It’s a lot of effort to sit in a less comfortable chair for a few hours and then packing it all up again just to go to bed.

Not to mention it’s now 2:08 am, my creative schedule spikes after midnight. So I write in bed.

It sucks.

Mike Birbiglia said in his seminal work Sleepwalk With Me that the key to good sleep was making sure your bed was just a space for sleeping. My bed is my space for everything. I don’t know what a work life balance is.

Enter: The Apron.

I’m not going to convince myself to get out of bed to write, that’s not happening. But I will do whatever is possible to keep my Sleeping Time and Writing Time separate.

When it’s time to write, I turn on my heating pad and put it at my feet, kick off my duvet and just rock the weighted blanket, and soon, when the mailroom at my college processes it, I’ll put on an apron.

Artists wear aprons, chefs wear aprons, dads wear humorous aprons that say “Kiss the Cook,” it’s the perfect outer-uniform to assume a Job.

An apron is the lowest maintenance way to go from non work mode into work mode. It’s an article of clothing that is purely functional. Just the clear barrier I need to go from Work Dais to Fun Dais. So then, the question remains: which apron?

I could go with the canvas-y ones that GBBO contestants wear, or a pinstripe Bradley-Cooper-in-that-Bourdain-show number, or the yellow ruffle daisy print one I had as a child that serves as a nostalgic metaphor for my misplaced femininity.

But no, one night while watching Bon Appetit videos I saw my dream apron: a single piece of fabric, crossed in the back. A quick google led me to The Strategist, a vertical of NYMag, my media boyfriend I fight with but still love.  Lo and behold: this linen blend Japanese apron:

And it has POCKETS! Pockets!!!

Seriously, try it. Put on an apron before you it at your desk job. Taking it off at the end of the day, though a simple gesture, is enough of a ritual to trick your brain into going out of work mode. Plus, it keeps your outfit cute, or makes a casual ensemble look a little more put together.

Before you say “But Dais! Writing in bed is still bad!” I live in a dorm. A single room. My idea of a home office is moving to the hard plastic chair next to my record player. I wrote this in bed, I wrote a play in bed, I wrote a piece my nemesis in nonfiction class called “gimmicky” in bed, I’m okay. When I get rich enough to live in more than one room, then I’ll try moving. But for now, I’ll write in bed in my apron.

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