Just up the street from my house is a small private college where I sometimes go to write. The campus has a cozy, east coasty kind of vibe with tall hardwood trees and colonial style buildings constructed from red brick. I like going to the library there as it has a few nice places to work unbothered. Today, I’ve found myself a spot overlooking one of the main reference rooms from a second floor loft. 

The space is open and brightly lit, with windows stretching all the way from the lower level stacks to the barrel ceiling two stories up. The loft is furnished with several wooden tables, seated with mid-century modern chairs and a single lamp placed on each work surface. The lamps are smart and compliment the wooden decor with a chrome base and shallow, dome-shaped shade made from frosted glass. Inspired by the setting, I begin to romanticize and imagine myself working late into the evening, pouring over manmeetskeyboard by the lamp’s solitary glow in an otherwise darkened and abandoned room. The dream dies, however, when I realize there aren’t any electrical outlets to plug the lamps into. Not on the floor, not on the wall, not anywhere on the loft. Just the lamp’s cord hanging off the table’s ledge and not quite reaching the low-pile carpet below.

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