VirusHead

Haven’t had a lot of time for the blog just lately. I’ve been helping J with a slideshow for a lecture he’s giving in France, getting Ben readied for the beginning of school, working on some new projects of my own, and reorganizing my office.

I’m sitting in the middle of the whirlwind right now. The room is small, and I have to smash a lot of stuff in here. My office used to be in a bigger room, but I promised that Ben could take the room when my dissertation was done.

I’ve taken out costumes to be stored, and clothes that are too small or completely out of style. I’ve put my books (two levels deep) in the bookcases in such as way as to have the books that I use most often in the front. I’ve put scattered photographs into three shoeboxes, just waiting for the someday that I’ll make some more albums. I’ve created separate spaces for music and cameras and so forth. Fortunately, the filing cabinets are already as organized as they are going to get. I could throw out a lot of my research and notes, I suppose, but I’m not ready to do that.

I’m about halfway done. I found things in my closet that you wouldn’t even believe (OMG – what is that?). Already there are piles of things stacked all around the floor, and in bags (to donate, give away), and in boxes (to store somewhere else, maybe in the garage- oh no, now I have to do the garage…).

How has it gotten to this point? Well, I clean the rest of the house first. The kitchen and living room get messy every day. There’s laundry to be done, and dishes. Since I’m not working full-time, I can’t really complain about doing all the housework (although it grates on my feminist heart). I hate housework, so I throw on energetic music and whirl through like a Tasmanian devil to get it done as fast as I can.

By the time I get to “my” room, I’m tired. I spend a lot of time in here, but I’m the only one who does, so it ends up being my last priority.

I am making progress – slowly. It’s worth it.

I always feel better when my personal office – the room of my own – is well-organized.

The Photo Meme theme this week has to have something to do with an office. I had a perfect photo in mind, but could not locate it in my three boxes of photographs. It was a photo from 1987 or so, of my little room in Iowa City. What would have made it an interesting picture was that it included a screen shot of my first computer – an IBM PS2 with no hard drive. The screen showed a large pixel rendering of David Lettterman’s face. Oh well.

It turns out that I have only one photograph in my entire collection that has anything to do with the theme of an office. This is a photograph of a wall in my High School. I don’t know whether the mural would still be there or not, but this was right outside a classroom where kids – believe it or not – took typing class.