Wednesday's Words for August 31, 2011

After years of being exiled to the far corner of my office, sitting with my back to the room like a recalcitrant child, I am pleased to announce that I finally rebelled, and ordered a complete and total re-organization of my work space. And in the process, I discovered, among other things, that no one in this family remembers things in quite the way they happened.

I do recall that I came home one day several years ago to find that my daughter had re-arranged my office for me when all I had asked her to do was “clean up my wires”.

Imagine my surprise to discover my antique oak library desk that had been situated in front of the window, shoved into a corner, and not only into a corner but angled in such a way as to make me face that conflux of two walls if I wanted to work at it.

When I came home on this particular day, my husband saw my face as I took in for the first time this new arrangement. He said, “I told her not to do it. I told her you’d be mad!”

I wasn’t mad, but I was a little disappointed. I left the office in this new arrangement for two reasons. First, a lot of the work had been involved in carrying out the move in the first place. Second, the truth was that this new set-up was necessary for Internet access, which at that time was through my phone line. My daughter hadn’t been able to move the phone line to the computer as we had thought she could, so the alternative was to move the computer to the phone line instead. At the time, I hadn’t yet been published and didn’t spend all that much time BICFOK [butt in chair fingers on keyboard].

So through the years there I’ve sat in this room everyone agrees is my office, in the far corner, facing the wall, while life goes on behind me.

There are two doorways (but only one door) in my office. One opens to the entry hall and the living room; the second opens to the kitchen. And yes, the preferred route—but not the only one—from living room to kitchen is through my office.

The rest of my office is filled with file cabinets, book cases, and of course, a second computer, one that my beloved likes to use.

You can just see us, can’t you? Silently sitting, back to back, and surfing the web in matrimonial harmony.

Two winters ago saw the addition of an electric fireplace to my office. My beloved set it up in front of the window, of course. Ah, a fireplace! That sounds cosy—until I tell you that after it got moved in, we shortly discovered that to use it meant to pop a fuse breaker. Thus it sits, in the winter, in front of the window, looking cozy.

I’ve been continually reassured that we’re going to have that glitch looked at, one of these days.

There had been only one real down side to this desk in corner arrangement. In the spring, the sun streaming through my window shone upon my computer screen so brightly that for an hour and a bit each morning, seeing the screen was out of the question.

I quickly bought a bamboo blind to solve that problem.

Eventually, of course, I got tired of the corner, so about two weeks ago I informed all and sundry that I intended to move my desk back to in front of the window. I want to at least see the sunshine and blue skies each day.

No one recalled the actual circumstances of the first move, and I heard grumblings of “make up your mind where you want to be” despite that at least six years have passed since the desk was moved to that corner.

So on the appointed day my daughter came over, and the move was accomplished.

As soon as he saw it my beloved announced he wasn’t completely happy with the new look, as we were now sitting closer together, and at right angles to each other. But then he proved he’s come a long way when he hastened to add that it was after all my office, and I was the one who needed to be happy with it.

And they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!

Love,
Morgan
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