July 23 2007, 10:12 PM Tabla Immunda

At work, the office is a place of some comfort. I have been there that things have a place, now: a balance has been struck between the mountain of stuff and the spaces for it all, and there is a little bit of harmony at the end of the day. Cleaning up is easy, and the light is gentle except when the solar geometries knock sunlight straight through the window, or we decide to light the surgeons lamping. We rarely do that. I must say, too, the office is quite warm; sometimes, coming back from a jaunt is walking into a wall of air. It bothers me less than the other, I think.

We have a whiteboard, of course (ah, academia). This wall of malleable paper is ever useful, but we've found it to collect paraphernalia in the corners (much like everything else): names, times, salutations. That sort of thing. Some time ago, this gentle gloss of history threatened to overwhelm the usefulness, so up went sleeves and out came the cleaning solution and paper towels. Soon, the wall was white, white, and eager to take new knowledge. It only took days before someone wrote salutations on it.

At home, the office is less so. It is full of things, but they have no places, and there is still too much stuff in here. I am pruning it out, putting things in boxes for the attic or bags for the curb. It's coming along. I took the whiteboard down to the kitchen hallway, and it's getting much better use as a shopping list.

One of my co-workers has whiteboards that they do not use. I use them; I occasionally walk in to put new hints to wonders on them. Today, I entered to erase them all, every one, to replace them with a single word.