Mark's Web Site: A quiet place with just a bit of pretension.

I bought a new desk this weekend.  It's used and it was a great deal I found on Craig's List.  I've been needing a new desk ever since I tried to move my old one by myself a couple of years ago.  It is pretty heavy so I had to drag it across the carpeted floor.  Naturally, the leg caught in the carpet and the side of the desk pulled apart.  This caused one leg to set a bit askew, which caused the bottom drawer to fall off its track.  That and the fact that the laminate on the edges of the desktop had been peeling off for years just brought me to the conclusion that I needed a new desk. 

Actually, I came to this conclusion about the time I broke my desk.  I've been looking on Craig's list on and off for the past couple of years for something that would serve me better as a "work space" rather than just a desk.  I had visions of a modular command center from which I could launch out into cyberspace.  The primary desktop for my personal desktop computer and a separate ell for the laptop from work.  Maybe some under-storage for all those thing I can't find the will to throw out.  A hutch over top to stack the papers I refuse to file.  Special spaces for the electronic equipment I need to surround myself with  - complete with a re-charging station that will centralized the many cords and cables I need to keep my life mobile and electric. I would be in control of my life in a place like that.

When I saw the picture of my new desk, it was clearly mine.  All teak, large surface, clean lines.  Enough space to keep the necessities within reach without overloading storage space. It is, admittedly, not the command center.  It has a couple of smaller matching pieces, a cabinet and a side table, but not the hutch or the ell, or the central charging station.  It's mostly just a large flat surface, a place I can do my work without having to strap in for long journeys.  It's a simpler solution.

So last night I cleaned out my old desk and broke it down for the trash man.  Yes, I know, I should be re-using or re-cycling.  The fact is, the trash man comes today and there is no place for me to keep two desks in my basement office.  I wouldn't be able to get the new desk in, never mind actually sit down at it.  The semester starts tomorrow and I need to get off to a fast start. Feeble, I know, but the only rationale I have. 

As I cleaned out the drawers I realized that I hadn't seen most of this stuff in years.  There were floppy disks that I just had to hold on to the last time I did this, and I haven't touched since.  There are ZIP drive disks that, at the time I filled them up, were the latest in data storage. Each disks hold 100 megabytes.  Now, three photos will consume that disk.  I had been saving them because I thought I might need the data I backed up in 2003.  I've sinced saved all that to my 360 gigabyte external hard drive.  I hope to be dead before I fill that up.  There were so many variations of labels that I just had to have for some special purpose.  I think trashing the labels might help me trash more of the stuff I would put them on.  It would be a blessing.

Today the new desk comes.  I'll fill it with only those things that I will use at least monthly.  Things like photo discs, pads of paper that outdate the Clinton administration, little mementos from places I've can't remember going to, business cards from faceless people working for companies I've never heard of, fastening devices that are always in the way except when you really need one.  Mining the depths of my desk is a look into the history of my mind.  Why put this thing here?  Why save that?  At one time the rationale was clear, now it is just old.  If I would change the direction of my life, I must, I think, let go of so much of the trivial past.  Perhaps just a token from each era, just a piece in the back of the bottom drawer that I can reflect on the next time I need to clean my desk.  It is, after all, the place I bring my world to.