I am UP!

For some reason my head is full of wonderful ideas. I now have an outlet, and I appreciate all who may or may not be interested but will read.

This week I moved my "office" around. I have always moved furniture. Frustrated creativity I suppose. But I love the energizing feeling of things looking totally different. I remember as a kid I shared a room with my brother for a while. So you had two of us, our beds and whatever effluvia comes with that. With me at one time it was a 7 foot long desk top mounted on 4 foot high steel legs. I can't say where I acquired it from, but I painted it blue. I nestled in to my desk and area. I am a Cancer and our STUFF creates our comfort. I can still picture what my desk and environs looked like. I can say that with over 20 years having passed because my then teenaged brother sketched it. I would like to say (he doesn't read this so I can) that he doesn't work with his creative talents in an obvious way, he instead is logical, methodical and works with his hands.

I have kept his sketch all of these years (though its current whereabouts are not known) to review my habits. Let me elaborate. When I was 15 I found GQ! Now back then, it was somewhat more butch. In an effort to enjoy the male form, I got a subscription. Seriously for 3 years I got GQ. What did I do with the magazine??? I bought HUNDREDS of map tacks (yah, look it up) and hung up the pictures on my wall. For those who saw 16 Candles, the cute boy, JAKE, hung on my wall for nearly a year before the movie...Michael Schoeffling. Not a stalker, but an appreciator. I remember sitting in the movie asking my friend if she had seen the actor before...no. I went home pondering, this niggling familiarity bothering me. A few days later I looked up from my desk & THERE WAS JAKE! Quite magnificently covering more than one space on my wall....I know how Molly felt in the move...sigh.

Other than the boys, I had a teddy bear, my drawing and caligraphy pens, and then my calligraphy. "The Moral Majority is Neither"...."Would you mind very much if you took your silly ass problems down the hall?"..."Feminism does little to equate as much as it does to emasculate."...are a few I recall. I felt LIBERATED as a youth to take profanity and make it beautiful with my calligraphy. Whatever my parents felt about me using THOSE WORDS I think my mom was just relieved I was creating! I had an acrylic picture square I had purloined from my dad. The pictures were held in with a foam insert. What my brother's sketch doesn't show is that the foam square is hollowed out & it was an nifty little storage space for stash...I felt so cool!

I haven't changed with my nestling. Under my computer screen is a shimmering little mound of Kooshes. LOVE THEM...can't find them any more but LOVE THEM! I must have them. I remember living WITHOUT a television in my first apartment in downtown Portland sitting in the dark and juggling the glow in the dark kooshes. Yes I was sober! I have my little sayings not done in my calligraphed hand but nonetheless in their specific places to motivate. My little Ikea light which I love. My pens, less so for drawing now but for bill paying. One little wonder to appear this time was my 3 inch tall wooden bowling pin trophy from the 72-73 "season" where my average was 69. I went to the state championship that year! My mom didn't have the heart to tell me later that I was included so they could have a handicap bowler to manage the score. I barely remember going, I do remember the shirt. Really did have velvet printing...Heather on my barely burgeoning breastlet. I felt cool.

A few new things on my desk are for doggie torture. A mini remote controlled helicopter which I fire up every so often to make Daisy think Satan is here. I also have a Cadbury Bunny which clucks. Luke runs from it...Daisy & Bo are incensed by it! LOVE IT! This desk is different than my childhood desk. I don't sit at it & dream of what I will be...instead I sit and deal with what I have and how to get through until tomorrow. The creativity and passion has dissapated for organization and bill paying. The desk wasn't painted blue, instead I made sure there were places to store receipts, passwords and grown up effluvia. My drawing pens are there and in a cute container sadly more of a decoration than a necessity as they were over 20 years ago. There is a pece of art my friend Julie made me hanging over my desk which makes me smile.

My husband has a space where he nestles. We found a beautiful big oak desk for nearly little cost (because of it we can never move, huge) and his recently added 46 inch tv (THAT story is for another time). I will be critical of his space. In this beautiful desk there is NO PEN & PAPER. Dear GOD man....what craziness is THIS. "I can store it on my computer"...which he does. He has a MAC. Dear God that is wierd. But on his "pads" (they can't be pads without PAPER) and "note" areas (again no paper) he keeps passwords and such. On the rare occasions where I do sit at his desk, I rave internally for a GOD DAMNED PEN & PAPER. None. Drives me nuts...but to him he is nestled. He has a Japanese quote....whichever hat he is wearing waiting on the corner...and his mini LSU football helmet. I query now if there is a picture of us on his desk but the hypocracy of there not being one of us on mine glares.

My desk at work is also my nestling place. I have pictures, cards and stuffed animals to keep me grounded OUT of the workplace while I am there. I have 4 pictures of my husband there. they are a beacon as to whether I like Mike or not. If they are face down, I am avoiding. If they are in the drawer....he had better be hiding. When he worked at the same place it was more entertaining now. I have a teddy bear there that Mike gave me when he was sucking up which holds up the collection of dog pictures. One of each, it isn't a scrapbooked collage (sorry to sound snide, just not me). I look at the surrounding desk of my employees and peers. What their desks say about them.

I look at my desk at here & pause to run my hand over my koosh. They remind me to find the 16 year old with the 7 foot desk she knew lead her to other places in her head where the little Slyvia Plath kid could be happy!

Be great to you!
H