Somebody should write a manual on how to sit comfortably. It really bothers me that I can’t sit at a table for longer than five minutes without getting jittery. I think it has to do with not having been able to find a chair and table that suit my unwieldy proportions. Most chairs are too short for me. When I sit down and out my hands on the table it feels like I’m trying to climb a wall. Using a taller chair seems to solve the problem, but then, most tables have these confounded drawers that occupy about 6 inches of space beneath the surface. They get in the way of my feet even with shorter chairs. Using taller chairs means that I have to sit back so as to keep my legs clear of the table, and I find myself leaning forward like a clumsy giraffe. The other option would be to stick my knees under the drawers anyway, but this causes the front of the table to lift off the floor and tilt backwards. Add to this the woes of not finding chairs too hard or too soft. Cushioned chairs make me feel stiff. Hard surfaces are fine, but they tend to have this annoying downward slope to the back that makes me feel like I’ve parked my rump in a ditch. The only solution I can think of when I can’t bear the torture of sitting any longer is to lie down and sleep. Until of course I start rolling from side to side.
—VK
Article 19 