My evil twin has posted an annotated photo of her desk junk. (Yes, I am proud to be represented among the flotsam and jetsam in her Pile O’Crap.™)
You can tell a lot about a person from the contents of the junk on their desk. I think that if you get a candid picture of desk junk, it’s one of the most revealing photos you can take. It represents all the stuff that we’re working on, pretend to be working on, ought to be working on, or think about working on but set aside to play City of Heroes (or insert your favorite time sucking monster).
I can’t find my camera right now, or I’d treat you to a pic of this disaster zone that surrounds me. However, for those that are interested (which I am told by my publicist is a really huge number so I don’t get depressed and fire him), here is a detailed description of all the junk on my desk. You’re welcome.
-pile of empty envelopes
We don’t need no stinking address book! We gots our pile of Christmas card envelopes with the return addresses right on ’em. (So, if you didn’t send me a Christmas card, don’t expect a letter from me any time soon.)
-CD label stomper (for stomping CD labels, duh)
-several manila folders with notes, character sketches, family trees, etc., for the book that I promised to write 20 years ago and have finally realized will never be completed but can’t bear to throw out
-a rabbit with big pointy teeth
-more miscellaneous bits of computer than I can identify (a ribbon cable here, an old video card there…)
-a Cleveland Indians spring training cap (‘cuz they didn’t sell Boston ones there, duh)
-a fiery looking “Nassau” baseball cap that Pepperkat brought back for me from her Girl Scout cruise ship trip (I almost never wear hats, btw)
-a broken set of expensive headphones (alongside a cheap pair with mic)
-a church directory (so I can call up people and beg them to let me borrow tools that I wind up not using for months)
-more CD’s than I can possibly enumerate (99-percent of them being games or game magazine samplers)
-books
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (as boring as it sounds)
Eragon (which I haven’t read)
The Glorious Cause
The Writer’s Journey
The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages
-a box of cassette tapes that was rescued from the obscurity of my past during a trip to Maine a few years ago… the box is rectangular, cardboard, and covered in the kind of flower-power pattern you see covering Goldie Hawn’s torso on a Laugh-In rerun… it contains about 30 tapes of awesome music that I recorded off the radio during Casey Kasem’s end-of-year countdown or from scratchy Led Zeppelin albums… it also was where I found a party tape wherein some yokel band named Revolver was featured
-a pile o’ blank cd’s, a 3-hole punch, used AA batteries, pizza coupons, sticky notes, a used phosphorescent glowy bracelet thingy, pens, pencils, sharpies…
On second thought, I think I’m just a pig who needs to clean his desk.
eh. if you clean it, it’ll just pile up again. my mom used to say “the house WANTS to be this way” –ever notice those stubborn pile-up areas in your house, the ones that get filled with stuffs and then you sift, sort, put away, but it piles up again almost immediately? that’s what she ‘s talking about. it’s like your house/surroundings *want* to be that way, and the only way to maintain balance in the home is to just let the junk piles pile and flow…
cos she also noted that once the pile becomes a pile, it rarely grows into something monstrous. it just sort of grows to a comfortable level and maintains.
i seriously think she was on to something, here.
Following that logic, I have a very comfortable desk here, too.
Among the highlights, a network print server that I asked for Christmas, still in the wrapper 5 months later.
An action figure (Burger King variety) of Mr. Incredible, along with stacks of baseball and yugi-oh cards, left behind by the resident monsters of the house.
Wallets with the discs from the last 3 or 4 computers I have dragged home over time. From machines going back almost 10 years. Sheesh.
Scads and scads of business cards and other scraps of paper that I have jotted something onto, as opposed to actually using the Palm that is also there on the desk somewhere, I hope.
And magazines. Too many, that haven’t either beem thrown away, or filed away.
Yup, I is guilty, too.
Desk junk? I am QUEEN of the clean desk.
Now, floors, kitchen table, dining room table…that’s different. But my DESK is immaculate, organized, even landscaped.
And it strikes me as disturbing, Les, that you and I own not one, but TWO books in common (potentially three, but I’d have to check).
I’m with Sherri, I keep an immaculate and landscaped desk. It’s where I work and live (working at home) and I simply must have it organized. However… don’t look beyond the desk. That is the true nightmare.
My only book contributions are Frommer’s Guide books (too many to name), Stern’s Guides (again, too many) and a couple of beautiful books on Alaska and some coffee table sized photo books on Royal Caribbean and Disney. Hmmm…. I sound like a travel dweeb. DOH! I AM!!!
Hah! You only THINK you have junk. I don’t have the Monty Python rabbit, but I’ve got Bubo the Owl. Top that!
I also have Hagar the Witch, from Voltron! And I have Voltron! And Jem. And all the Barbie-type dolls from Robotech.
Sadly enough, name almost any eighties must-have action figure, and I have it. And I can probably go right to it. Not that I would have a kitchen drawer expressly dedicated to such things; that would just be scary and, and, and. . . . oh, it’s not like anybody KNOWS that.
Which party??? Early Revolver (pre paying gigs), mid Revolver (paying gigs)…, or late Revolver (post Walter/Ric)????!!??
i used to have a Hagrid action figure (with pink parasol and baby Norbert!) on my desk.
…he’s in storage right now. 🙁 oh soon, Hagrid, we shall be reunited…