Hello Sweethearts, you miserable lot forsaking me. How am I supposed to keep going without fuel? Never mind: A weed is a plant in the wrong place and, if lucky, either a cat will nip you or you’ll die unnoticed.
This minute I have surprised myself. I do this periodically by clearing up my desk. My god, here is Ms Perfection personified, or so I was told a long time ago, and I find a handwritten note of a telephone number. Unfortunately there is no name with it. That’s the optimist in me. I will write down anything – on hundreds of little bits of paper – deluding myself that I will know one week on what they mean. I truly love myself on that note alone.
I also have so many notebooks I can’t find anything I noted. But when I do I am surprised. For the amateur psychologists among you this can only mean one thing: Before my first sibling was born, and in between being entertained by my enchanting grandparents, my mother and my uncles and their then respective fiancees, I entertained myself. Old habits die hard.
I love my handwriting. I love it I love it I love it. When I see my handwritten notes (Staedtler Noris HB2 with a rubber tip in case I want to erase something) I am reminded that I exist.
Yes, you can tell can’t you: I have just tidied my desk. Which amounts to tidying AWAY myself. Whenever my desk is tidy I feel I am my father’s daughter. He is anal about his desk. It’s quite awful really. He used to call, probably still does, his waste paper basket (huge) “File No 13″. Naturally, it was always full. To be emptied promptly. I don’t know how my mother lives with him.
Yes, so everything is in order. Post it notes stacked, pencils sharpened, staplers refilled. All I need now is some action.
U
I know the feeling and it is cyclic. But, this is sometimes the crack between realities, the space between changes where the world is more plastic, pregnant with potential.
Either that, or it’s just boring.
Comment by conhake — June 6, 2012 @ 17:21 |
Conrad, pregnant pause ……………………
And, yes, you are the father.
U
Comment by Ursula — June 7, 2012 @ 06:57 |
I also have bits of paper everywhere with reminder notes. When I find one with a number & no name I call them & ask, “Why am I calling you?” It works if the paper is not too old. I always have several lists in categories. SOooo much fun when you get to scratch a job off. Tom put at the bottom of my list “make lists”.
I’d rather be a weed in the wrong place than a flower standing in a row.
Comment by bikehikebabe — June 6, 2012 @ 17:56 |
Curiosity kills the cat, Cynthia. That’s why I curb mine and never call back any number without a name to it.
It takes some tough self discipline but have now decided that anyone with any interest in me will call AGAIN. I have had enough of stirring nests where there isn’t one.
As to lists: Once upon a time I made lists. Wasn’t even particularly impressed with myself at any ticking off items on it. Now I don’t make lists any longer. I just do what needs to be done – and if I do NOT do what needs to be done I tick myself off. Ouch.
U
PS As to your last sentence and observation, Cynthia: It’s sweet, it’s poetic, and I underwrite it.
Comment by Ursula — June 7, 2012 @ 07:06 |
Test to see if I get my pic here.
Comment by bikehikebabe66 — June 6, 2012 @ 17:58 |
No your picture is not here. Sue wordpress. Your likeness is in my mind’s eye. Creases in the fabric of life are there to be ironed out. And we’ll get you right in focus any time soon.
U
Comment by Ursula — June 7, 2012 @ 07:08 |
Mm! Weeds… a plant growing where a human being doesn’t want it to… and yet some of those weeds will be amongst the most beautiful of plants, or even the most useful.
Staedtler tradition unless I can find a Venus…. HB or B. The ideal writing implement…but we may have discussed this before.
I have never had the courage to call those random numbers but if I have called them a few times I can generally recognise them….
What is the most interesting ting that resides upon your desk? I think mine must be two pieces of birthday cake wrapped up for a special friend, one from August 2010 and t’other from 2011… being cognac soaked very rich fruitcake they will both be edible years hence….
“File 13″? Reminds me of how I dealt with all the bumf that one received from various interferring organisations when one was teaching: They wer filed under TRL(IIR) and after about 2 months refiled under WPB
TRL (IIR) was To Read Later (If I Remember) and WPB was Waste Paper Basket. I developed an uncanny knack for knowing which I could file under TRL and which had to be read immediately.
An untidy desk is a sign of genius……
Comment by David — June 6, 2012 @ 18:50 |
Yes, David, we have discussed pencils before. And I am mindful of the recommendation you made some time ago.
You have got me worried now: How BIG is your desk to accommodate TWO pieces of stale birthday cake?
What’s the most interesting thing on my desk? Myself, I suppose, when I am sitting on it. Not that I ever do.T
here are two small wooden boxes (top left hand corner). A faint inscription on one “Wilkinson” and the lid has proper hinges. The other is a cigar box – reading “Manikin Cigars Mild Havana Flavour”. It’s old, it’s battered and I love it. Just opened it to see what’s inside: And, yes, hallelujah, once more I find one of my handwritten notes inside, saying “Your life will be happy and peaceful”. This is with reference to the Angel’s fortune cookie.
Other than that my desk is terribly functional – like a tool box. If, in an emergency, I had to rescue one thing (apart from my address book) it would be my calculator. It’s sleek, it’s elegant, best of ‘Braun’ engineering, light beige, in a sturdy sleeve, a present given to me some 25 or so years ago, and in daily use. In as much as one can form a ‘relationship’ with an inanimate object that’s the one on my desk. All the other paraphernalia easy to replace.
U
Comment by Ursula — June 7, 2012 @ 06:54 |
How big? Large enough to accomodate.. Two telephones…. one vintage.. a decanter full of aniseed balls, large and noisy computer, a laptop computer, monitor a pair of loudspeakers, key board, Desk lamp, two computer mouses )one on a mat with wrist rest.two piles of books and papers various little items like pens and pencils and old testtubes corks with my old dissecting instruments stabbed into them, power supplies, a mobile phone…oh that’s where it is…I was looking for it the other day, a bottle of ink, a mini maglite pen, two wooden spoons from some cafe, a pritt stick of some vintage, Observer Book of Geology dated Christmas 1960…and so on…. spare keyboard on to p of noisy computer and a scatter of business cards.
BTW it turns a corner.
You did ask… the thing to save would be the decanter…. it was presented to me by my colleagues when I left Roger Ascham Junior School back in 1986…and the P.T.A. presented the bottle of Vintage Port to go with it!
Comment by David — June 7, 2012 @ 08:36 |
You need action? I’d start by calling that telephone number and finding out who it is. It’s quite possible someone is waiting for you to call them.
Some say a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, but that only makes me wonder, what does an empty desk signify?
Comment by Phil — June 6, 2012 @ 19:15 |
Phone that number, Phil? You’ve got to be joking. It might be someone I owe money to. In my experience people don’t like to be owed. They’ll disown you.
On the strength of your argument have now commissioned research on correlation between desks and the minds of who sit at them. Like in any research there will be variables. And there will be liars, rendering “research” useless. Should you ever find yourself in the pursuit of anything please do enter the realm of elusive research, play Beethoven at the same time and you will wonder why you didn’t study quantum physics and go deaf instead.
U
Comment by Ursula — June 7, 2012 @ 06:48 |
Quantum Physics is such a
desirable topic don’t you think?
Androgoth XXx
Comment by Androgoth — June 12, 2012 @ 23:37 |
I was always told that A tidy desk showed an empty mind… so an empty desk would indicate complete absence of mind.
Comment by David — June 7, 2012 @ 08:23 |
I have a ribbon board that holds the little scraps that I don’t know what to do with. The minute I throw it away, it is the number my husband needs for a warranty or something of major importance. So I hold it for a few months on the board, and if no one asks for it, I toss it. I can cover it over with a nice postcard if it looks untidy. But as soon as I clean off the desk, I forget where I filed all of the things I need. Yikes!
Comment by writingfeemail — June 7, 2012 @ 10:56 |
Test to see if my picture works.
Comment by bikehikebabe — June 7, 2012 @ 20:52 |
While you were cleaning up did you find the other note
Never mind I will get over it…
you know that “Call at Androgoth’s Realm of Naughtiness?”
Well I was just wondering that’s all, seeing as I never see
much of you in my Space
Have fun and wickedness always…
Androgoth XXx
Comment by Androgoth — June 12, 2012 @ 08:46 |
My dear dear Androgoth, do not despair at my not leaving a caller’s card at your premises. The day will come. I currently live the life of a recluse in the making. ‘Naughtiness’ the last thing on my mind. Though, maybe, some would do me good.
Well, that’s it: Reflecting on what I just said I’ve got to pull myself out of a slump and join the Goth parade. One thing which amuses me no end that once I’ll have shown the Angel your site he and his friends will barely be able to keep their eyes off it – or so I imagine. You’ll get traffic.
Which reminds me, and stop me if I have related this before: Some years ago, when we still lived further down the coast, there was a couple living on our road. Pure goth. Stunning. He, big guy, black hair of medium length, leather clad, say in his late thirties, early forties; she was tall, fine bone structure and so beautifully pale. Make that white. Whenever I saw them in our local supermarket I promptly dropped my shopping list so in awe of their combined beauty was I. Eventually, and I never asked, he had a younger model walking down aisle 23 to buy some cereal. Possibly his daughter. Who knows.
Funny how some people embed themselves in our memory.
U
Comment by bitchontheblog — June 12, 2012 @ 10:01 |
What a sweet reply, thank you…
Androgoth XXx
Comment by Androgoth — June 12, 2012 @ 23:35 |