A day in the life of an electronic cottager

Until last summer, when I moved the photocopier to a separate table, I was working not just from a home office but from a desktop office. From left to right, on a six‐foot golden oak desk (a 1950s high‐school‐principal model that I got a decade ago, free for the hauling) sit a fax machine, a 386 IBM‐clone PC, a CD‐ROM drive and a laser printer. That array still leaves room for some files (and piles), a Rolodex, and a tarnished silver julep cup that I use as a pencil holder.