In Which Truepenny Cleans Her Desk

[truepenny]

The beeping has been traced, in point of fact, to my watch, which is not in my desk. (I leave it buckled around my purse strap.) How it got set in the first place is a deep mystery; how I'm going to get it unset is an enigma nearly as deep.

However, I have been motivated by wrath to clean my desk, and Mirrorthaw would be the first to tell you that it is not before its time.

So, starting from the top:

The Contents of Truepenny's Desk
[begin 10:57 a.m. | finish 1:09 p.m.]


Desktop

• box in which I keep my fountain pen ink, with bottle of Private Reserve Black Cherry inside
  
• keychain fob from the Field Museum of Sue's skull
  
• pewter keychain fob in the shape of a book which used to read "Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens." (given to me by Mirrorthaw)
  
• 3 floppy disks
  
• 3 CD-ROMs
  
• cheap index card holder, containing motley assortment of index cards, divisible into three groups:
  

  (1.) those with addresses, various mystic numbers for the proper operation of the computer and its software, the dates my various degrees were conferred; also a card reading "1. Advance plot / 2. Provide background / 3. develop characters / at least 2 of the 3" (kept)
  (2.) those with lists of books to look for (pitched, once I double-checked that all of the books were in fact listed on the Master List)
  (3.) those with various arcane notes: variants on the counting rhyme "One for sorrow / Two for joy"--and can someone tell me which species of bird that's for? Crows? Magpies?; prison statistics; sizes of various species of otters (pitched, once the notes were transcribed into the correct computer files)

  
  
• E. G. Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names (put back on shelf)

[I just discovered, in Googling, that E. G. Withycombe was a woman! She is so totally my hero now!]

• Cyril Tourneur, The Revenger's Tragedy
  
• the lid of the cheap index card holder, which never stays on (pitched)
  
• various ticket stubs and receipts (pitched or filed, as appropriate)
  
• scrap paper of which both sides have been used (put in the recycling stack)
  
• this month's SFBC flier--and is it just me, or are they offering an incredible amount of crap this month?
  
• box of paperclips
  
• wodge of paper with MapQuest directions for recent trip to Ann Arbor (put in scrap paper stack)
  
• map of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (ditto)
  
• pack of kleenex (put in purse)
  
• 3 boxes binder clips (2 large, 1 small) and pack of tape flags
  
• Barnes & Noble bag containing my monumental collection of postcards
  
• 3 sets of index cards which maintain my short story management system (put in cheap index card container)
  
• bright orange paperclip (put in paperclip box)
  
• letter-opener
  
• mug of pens
  
• information sheet from university which I no longer need (recycling)
  
• clipboard (put with other clipboard)
  
• bank-statements
  
• instruction manual for spiffy 19" monitor (filed)
  
• 1 coaster, 2 AOL CD-ROMS and a cracked Diablo II CD-ROM, all serving as coasters

The Cubby

• 1 metal Swingline stapler which is like unto a god
  
• Scotch tape
  
• business envelopes
  
• box my fountain pen came in, which, though lovely, is also completely useless (pitched)
  
• tape of Once More, With Feeling which has been listened to so many times it is no longer playable (pitched)
  
• package and a half of blank index cards
  
• small squares of scrap paper for writing things on
  
• flier explaining the Parker Penman Ink Bottle (pitched)
  
• more index cards with arcane scribbles on them (pitched)
  
• one of those rulers with like six different scales on them
  
• a cross-stitch seahorse, executed by me as part of a Girl Scout badge at least fifteen years ago
  
• empty pencil case
  
• the CD-ROM for Caesar III, to which I was briefly and violently addicted a couple years back
  
• floppy disk holder with floppy disks in
  
• a couple floppy disks sculling about on their own
  
• weird collage notecards given me by elisem and a number of envelopes which do not match
  
• fountain pen manual (filed)
  
• large floppy disk holder--all floppy disks have now been consolidated
  
• Triple Leaf Tea Decaf Green Tea box containing my extensive collection of fortune-cookie fortunes
  
• *moved tape flags, binder clips, and paperclip box from desktop to cubby

We pause here to cringe in anticipation.

The Top Drawer

• box of blank checks
  
• package of rubber bands for containing book-length mss
  
• horde of rubber bands which have escaped from their package (stuffed back in package; package secured with small binder clip)
  
• clear packing tape (mostly used for protecting paperback books)
  
• package of spare ballpoint pens (blue Papermates)
  
• decrepit squeezy thing (pitched)
  
• box of paperclips (because there could be a shortage, you never know)
  
• spiral-bound notebook with Toulouse-Lautrec's Chat Noir on the cover
  
• box of pushpins
  
• 3 kleenex packages
  
• address book
  
• box of safety pins
  
• stack of various people's business cards
  
• book of colors for Spring from BeautiControl (my sister's fault)
  
• pencil sharpener
  
• small india-rubber gargoyle which I have had since third grade
  
• art eraser
  
• 3 AA batteries (I wonder if they still work)
  
• a green Bic pen which I hate (pitched)
  
• a list of sun-blocks recommended by a dermatologist I saw three years ago
  
• a calculator
  
• receipts of return from the library, which I think, really, it's okay to pitch now (pitched)
  
• a picture of a Fantasia Athena bottle, given me by heres_luck and renenet for reasons which made sense at the time (put with other photographs)
  
• a hair-tie, which must have been in this drawer since before the last time we moved
  
• battered page of cryptic notes (recycling)
  
• a very small top-spiral notebook which I got in Vienna when I was fifteen and used to keep a tally of all the various breeds of dogs I saw
  
• the "holes" which came with the Jeremy and John figures from The Yellow Submarine
  
• ANOTHER box of push pins
  
• a postcard from the Celestial Seasonings facility in Boulder, Colorado (put with the rest of the postcard collection)
  
• picture of me with my eyes shut from when I was working at the Writing Center (put with other photographs)
  
• old glasses prescription (pitched)
  
• the card with information about Pamela Coleman Smith (check out her wood-cut of Ellen Terry!) which came with my Rider-Waite Tarot deck
  
• old version of my book list (recycling)
  
• two boxes of staples
  
• another old glasses prescription (pitched)
  
• a three-hole punch
  
• two pins from the year my soccer team won the local AYSO tournament, one for that and one for being on the All-Star team
  
• an incredibly battered piece of paper with an old list of CDs to look for (recycling)
  
• an equally battered piece of paper with an old book list on it, also featuring the note scribbled for the genesis of one of my short stories in the Art Institute of Chicago (recycling)

Take a deep breath. We're almost done.

The Bottom Drawer

• A Colorado Pen Direct catalogue, courtesy of Mirrorthaw's excellent calligrapher aunt (ooh, shiny!)
  
• 2 gift bags
  
• 3 university bookstore bags from 2 different universities
  
• box of old checks (filed)
  
• map and visitors' guide for the Missouri Botanical Garden
  
• ditto for the Field Museum
  
• a pepper spray thing my mother-in-law insisted on giving me
  
• old sheets from one of those big wall calenders--perfect for drawing maps on the backs of
  
• an out-of-date postal scale that never worked very well to begin with (pitched)
  
• glasses-case with my previous pair of glasses
  
• book of Buffy the Vampire Slayer stickers
  
• sticker for Shelley Jackson's The Melancholy of Anatomy
  
• 2 boxes of Christmas cards
  
• an old 9 Chickweed Lane strip: "Jane ... Austen ... spin ... grave."
  
• another old 9CL: "Regale me once again."
  
• fragments of an old address book
  
• two old spiral bound notebooks, both featuring bits of stories from high school, when my handwriting was even larger, rounder, and more frightening than it is now. For those of you who've read Witch Week, I'm afraid I had Theresa Mullett handwriting.
  
• a small Mordillo puzzle
  
• a half-full box of thank-you stationery, from our wedding five years ago
  
• package of memo pads for phone messages
  
• a legal pad
  
• a variety of patches I've never sewn onto anything
  
• birthday cards, which I am throwing out before I am crushed to death beneath their aggregate weight
  
• an envelope full of old receipts (*recoils in horror*)
  
• file-folder labels I have never used and frankly don't think I ever will (pitched)
  
• a spare stapler
  
• a brass bookmark featuring one of the gargoyles from Brasenose College
  
• box of colored pencils
  
• an old Dilbert: "Give us some balance, you selfish hag."
  
• Mirrorthaw's undergrad student ID, one of only two pictures I have of him with long hair
  
• my WisCon 25 badge--what the heck was it doing in there instead of in the WisCon 25 folder? (filed)
  
• an unlabeled CD-R. wft?
  
• a slightly squashed but still beautiful folded paper box
  
• collection of things I used to have up on my bulletin board, when I had a bulletin board, mostly comic strips (old Dilbert and 9CL have joined the throng
  
• glasses case containing the glasses I wore in Greece in 1996 (I can tell because the salt in the air did weird things to the ear-pieces)
  
• a box of No. 2 pencils
  
• yet more receipts of return
  
• a Happy Massager
  
• my old, purple, faux-crocodile skin billfold containing:
  
  • a Cleveland Public Library card
    
  • my admissions tickets for both the SATs and the Achievement Tests, back in 1991
    
  • my ID card from Governor's School
    
  • my undergraduate student ID
    
  • my Stellar Patrol card from Planetfall
    
  • a note from my eight and ninth grade English teacher, whom I worshipped, praising my writing
  
  
• 4 plastic file envelopes, 3 brown and 1 pink; the pink one now houses all my map-making paper
  
• another envelope of things I used to post on my bulletin board when I had one, this one including an old copy of the Evil Overlord list and the pictures from US Magazine's feature on Gillian Anderson; also a copy of Michelangelo's Last Judgment (2 envelopes consolidated)
  
• 3 more AA batteries (moved to join the other 3)
  
• small pill-bottle containing 1 prescription strength ibuprofen, the age of which I do not even wish to speculate about (pitched)
  
• a light sabre key-chain (with sound-effects!)
  
• an empty film container
  
• the souvenir keychain fob from an Aegean cruise my parents took the year before I was born
  
• Holy cats! More postcards! Some of which I have even convinced myself to pitch.
  
  
  Whoof.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

"One for sorrow, two for joy" is magpies where I come from.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I thought it was magpies, and then I second-guessed myself, as I am wont to do.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

I first read the rhyme in a beautifully illustrated children's book called CROWS (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374416109/ref=ed_oe_p/104-1565625-0096730?v=glance&s=books&st=*).

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, the first time I heard that rhyme connected with magpies was only a couple of years ago, when I read Gabriel King's The Wild Road - one of the supporting characters is a magpie named One for Sorrow. Me, I've always heard the rhyme with crows.

[persimmon.livejournal.com]

Not to be confused with five for sorrow, ten for joy - which refers to the rosary.

magpie rhymes

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

from the annotated Pratchett website page for Carpe Jugulum (http://www.co.uk.lspace.org/books/apf/carpe-jugulum.html):

As Agnes and Nanny go on to discuss, there are many different counting rhymes for magpies, but they generally agree that a single magpie is unlucky. Some people believe that one can avert the bad luck by being polite, or even downright flattering, to the magpie in this manner.

The rhyme Agnes repeats over the next few pages is similar to the one Mike learned as a child:

"One for sorrow, two for joy,
Three for a girl, four for a boy,
Five for silver, six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told."


Nanny's version seems closer to the Scots version given in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable:

"One's sorrow, two's mirth,
Three's a wedding, four's a birth,
Five's a christening, six a dearth,
Seven's heaven, eight is hell,
And nine's the devil his ane sel'."


-- although Nanny's also varies noticeably from this, which just goes to prove what she says about there being lots of different rhymes.

oh and also, inspired by keychain: Skulls Unlimited (http://www.skullsunlimited.com/). Just cause it's neat.

[hedda62.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is all so familiar. (Not, I mean, the Cleveland Public Library card and the Buffy stickers and the other minutiae of the list: the whole concept.) This is most of what I have been doing all summer. Today was the shelf by the phone; yesterday was the black hole of the pantry cupboard (desks are much more entertaining, postcards instead of old beans and sticky bits of candy). So many things. I didn't think to make a list of any of them, though; was probably overwhelmed by even the thought of it.

The organization process is good for avoiding other tasks, however (as is browsing people's LJs), mostly bits of editing I really don't want to do but really have to. Really really have to. Wish I had a desk...

Anyway, congratulations. Didn't it feel good? There is a certain whee to pitching stuff out, definitely.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I have to be in the right mood, so that I can righteously shout down my blinking timorous Inner Packrat, but then, yes, it can be tremendously satisfying. A couple years ago, the last time we moved, I went through my filing cabinets and threw out all the class notes from college I was never ever going to look at again, and boy the rest of that day I felt like I was 10 feet tall.

[hedda62.livejournal.com]

Took me sixteen years after I graduated from college to do that. But there's nothing like having to move all those boxes to prompt a bit of lightening.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

That's a lot of stuff.

In strange synergy, since I STILL don't have my computer back, I've been cleaning up in my office. So far have recycled two large manuals for software we stopped using maybe two years ago and an approximately one foot stack of "scrap" paper that was never used. Also put about a yard's worth of grant files down in the terminated area where they belong.

I do not wish to explore my desk at home just yet...it's not a real desk, and I don't sit at it, just stuff things in the top drawer that is really a filing cabinet. [shudder]i

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Are you familiar with the Robert Benchley essay wherein he describes his writing process in terms of avoiding writing by doing things like repairing a bookshelf over his desk, going on errands, cleaning his desk, etc?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, and very fond of it, besides. :)

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I'm not, but it sounds like the true tale.