All our home technology now is so old. We thought ebaying the old towers, desktop printers and scanners a few years back but nothing works anymore. Since Davo left his freelance business and went back to work in the city five years ago, the Brooklyn home office has been slowly sliding into the sea. Dave's desk has gone to seed. It's about 4" deep in refuse of dog-eared design books, sharpies, magazine issues still in their wrappers, jam jars of pens and scalpels, metal rulers, cat hair, discarded scotch tape dispensers, various pairs of headphones, dust, packets of post notes, an old cat collar...
My desk is equally unuseable for different reasons. Jammed into a corner at the far end loft, it occupies the space between the murphy bed and an old black office filing cabinet. Shelving above it holds all our cook books and objects d'art including the Brubaker glass paperweight collection. It's generally where I go to do my own illicit dumping! Dubious shopping returns with and without receipts, bank statements to be filed, catalogues and unopened mail. Under the desk is mostly taken up with boxes with my previous years tax returns, theater programs and cards I can't part with, old photos and correspondence. It feels like I'm working in a storage cupboard when Im over there, which happens about 15 minutes of every month when I sit down to pay our electricity and cable bills. It's about all I can stand. It's the human equivalent of a pet carry case. But you have a window over there Dave says, "Oh Yes" I answer "And I plan to use it if these walls don't stop closing in on me"!
