in-depth reporting

In the interest of being totally literal and unimaginative, this week's posts will be a series chronicling the mess on my desk. The Mess of Pottage. It's January, my brain is frozen. Or perhaps I am hoping to divine some deeper message (besides "clean up and get organized) lurking in the chaos. Like listening for patterns in white noise or reading tea leaves.

So, here goes.
Today the current items litter my desk:

• my monitor, keyboard and mouse as well as my old laptop (including power adaptor, mouse and portable hard drive), dazzle card, digital cam (batteries are dead) and cell phone(also needs re-charging), a solar powered calculator and a camera tripod,
• Smith's keys
• a 3 inch Eve toy with replacement arm and tiny plastic boot with plant growing out of it, a small rubber cheetah and a Lego wizard (to keep the bogons away)
• a bristle hairbrush,
  
• a smooth stone from French Beach
• a letter and photos from my mother-in-law
• 3 Alice Munro books of which I have double copies (Friend of My Youth, Runaway and Away from Her if anybody needs 'em)
• a printout of a Georgian Bay cottage which the owner refused to rent to me
• the most recent issue of Professionally Speaking magazine open to the page about Olympic lesson plans
• a construction paper circlet, made by Jack
  
• a ball of fuzzy green synthetic wool with tiny balls of colour threaded along it, a clear plastic purse handle
• a Christmas package awaiting delivery (still)
• a map of Montreal
• a pile of Bermuda sea glass wrapped in paper towel
• 2 pieces of unopened mail (bills)
• an empty eggshell blue coffee mug, an empty tea mug, an empty oatmeal bowl and spoon
• a green blown glass sea-urchin paperweight
• a travel-sized packet of tissues
  
• a box of Curious George bandaids and a birthday party invitation (Come PARTY like an ALIEN!),
• a lab test requisition form (for Jack) and two stool test kits with instructions
  
• Bernstein's Reverse Dictionary ("mess, confused condition: MARE'S NEST") in which I found my own handwritten copy of this passage from Annie Dillard's The Living:

"Swing out", the voices said in the darkness.
"Push from the platform, and when you're all the way out, let go."
When? he thought. Where?
The heavy rope pulled at him. He carried it to the platform edge. He hitched up the knot and launched out. As he swung through the air, trembling, he saw the blackness give way below, like a parting of clouds, to a deep patch of stars on the ground. It was the pond, he hoped, the hole in the woods reflecting the sky. He judged the instant and let go; he flung himself loose into the stars.


There you have it: my life in 6 square feet.