IC FARREN BINNAN AND I'M DOING SO WITH WINE

How do you know when a writer has too many pens and pencils?  How do you know when a writer is stockpiling folders and dividers?  How do you know when a writer has bought one or two or fifteen too many packs of notebook paper when they're on sale at Staples?

You visit my house, that's when.

Today I took on the daunting task that I have been putting off for about three years -- Tackling my office. 

I live in a townhouse, and it's relatively small.  Because it's an old house and used to be a barn ("carriage house"), its configuration is wacky.  There are few closets, and the ones that I have are narrow and shallow.  If I threw all four closets together, they would total one side-by-side closet usually found in a kid's room or in a front hall to use for coats.  Storage is at a minimum.  How three kids and I managed to survive here without living like complete hoarders is an amazing trick even Houdini couldn't pull off.

Several years ago I traded my long, skinny bedroom with one window and slanted ceilings for my daughter's old room after she moved out.  Her room is small, as are all the rooms, but it's square, has normal heights for ceilings, and has two windows.  I took my old room and turned it into junk room.  Boxes of pictures got dumped in there, fabric pieces were dumped in there, books were dumped in there, and various office supplies got dumped in there.

(Ones that got  thrown away.)

In short, it became the default closet.

In an effort to start ridding myself of junk and to encourage the two-thirds of my children who have actually moved away to please finish removing their belongings as well as their bodies, I have started a Shedding Program.  Unlike my diet, this program is actually showing some promise.  This house is now rid of several pieces of furniture, dozens of books, years and years worth or paperwork from my job and from old college and graduate classes, and clothes into which these hips will never again fit.  There's still lots to go (hundreds upon hundreds of old family photographs and antique family documents to sort and scan, etc.), but I can actually walk into the spare room now, even sit on the day bed, find a book, or watch TV. 

I thought organizing the books was going to be the piece de resistance, but it turns out the desk is actually the winner, winner, chicken dinner.  You see, I have been taking graduate classes for two years now, including summer classes, and that often means I grab supplies and eventually leave them hanging around in various places and piles until I have a break from the university, only I haven’t had a break from the university since I started taking classes.  Add this in with the supplies my youngest brought back from college and never unpacked plus the ones I've left around the downstairs to have handy when needed (as if walking up the stairs in this humble abode would take more than twenty-five steps), and there is mayhem.

I spend all day today going through every single pen, pencil, piece of paper, notebook, and office supply.  It takes all day long and well into the night.  I do break for forty minutes to sit outside and sip wine while reading a magazine, and I do allow myself to be distracted by Facebook.  Other than putting on a bra, though, I pretty much stay in my pajamas all damn day long while working on the desk and office space.  I just finished a grad class last week, and I start another one the week after next, after which is a year of writing my capstone/thesis.  This truly is my one and only window of opportunity for the next year and a half to do this.  If I should need to move to a new place in that time, it's just going to be an even bigger shit-show than it is right now.  Never you mind that it may well be the last decent weather day of my summer vacation.  With a battle cry akin to Beowulf, "Ic farren binnan."  (Loosely: "I'm going in.")

Hours and multiple back spasms later, the desk is done.  This is after I have tested every single pen and marker I have collected from around the house in addition to the dozens already in the drawers.  I have tossed out more than one hundred pens that have either dried up or run out of ink.  I have put aside eraser-less pencils to bring to school and use with the sign-out sheet for the classroom hall pass.  I have reworked the entire system so my meager sketching supplies find their own space because once upon a time when I was forced to take a drawing class during my undergrad work, I managed to get attached to several charcoal pencils and a flask of India ink, the remnants of which I still have.

What I am left with is an old desk that I've had since I was about seven years old, filled to its maximum capacity with well-organized supplies.  The top drawer is loaded with pencils and paperclips and ballpoint pens and erasers and sharpeners.  The right top drawer is full of permanent markers and highlighters and the art stuff and elastics and clips of various sizes.  The middle drawer is loaded up with staplers (I have three apparently) and tape and glue and small pads of paper and stickers and cards and rulers and hole punches.  The bottom drawer is loaded to its maximum weight capacity with paper and multiple-sized index cards.

I also have two stackable desktop filing boxes that house photo paper and a ream of construction paper and some of the three reams of printer paper I keep handy and an embarrassing amount of folders and dividers.  Sitting on the floor in well organized piles are the empty binders, blank journals and single-subject spiral notebooks, and an entire box overflowing with about 150 manila folders.  

All this, and I haven't even touched the hundreds of colored pencils I have stashed away.

In short, I have enough office supplies (that I did not pilfer from work -- teachers steal from home and bring in, not the other way around) to open my own business.  It could be because when I was a kid, my father did open his own businesses several times.  Maybe I'm bred and trained to have too many office supplies.  Who knows for sure.  All I know is that if there is a sale on index cards, pens, or three-ring notebook paper, I need to walk away.

In the meantime, I now know where everything is.  I am totally organized (desk-wise) now to be able to find whatever I need.  Do I still have too much stuff?  Probably.  I have I jettisoned a huge percentage of the excess?  Absolutely.

Now if my friends will kindly tie me to the office chair until the sales are over at Staples and wherever pens, pencils, and paper are sold, I would be forever in your debt.  Heck, I'll even give you a fancy pencil for your efforts.  I mean, I still have dozens of them.  Really.  It's not a big deal, and it's all part of my Shedding Program.