COME DISCONNECT THE DOTS

There are 38 days remaining until our office move. The moving coordinator is trying desperately to instill a sense of urgency in the staff but we just don’t care. It isn’t that we’re apathetic, although we are. It’s simply that it is hard to get excited about moving to a space that you have only seen on a large piece of foamcore. It’s a nice looking piece of foamcore and all but it just isn’t the same as actual space.

Our initial task is to put dots on things. Red dots are for items that are going to be thrown away and green dots are coming with us. The thing is, since I haven’t seen my new office, I don’t really know exactly what I want to bring with me. I have a big table that holds all my teaching materials. My boss seems to think that it should go. However, if I don’t have it I don’t know where I will keep my teaching materials. Will they get me a new table? Is there room for a table in my new office? No one seems to have answers for me.

The Executive Director and the Moving Coordinator suggested that I keep my desk. I told them I can but the bottom left drawer doesn’t open. They said I can put a red dot on it. Although I am excited at the prospect of a new desk, I am having visions of arriving to my new office and being deskless. I also have red dots on all my file cabinets because they don’t lock or they have locks and no keys. We are now to be required to lock all cabinets containing private information. Duh, we should have been doing that already. At least my office door is always locked so I feel a little better about the confidential stuffs in here. Anyway, I am picturing myself sitting in my chair, the only piece of furniture with a green dot amid a pile of student files, teaching materials, and random desk crap. It sounds awful.

I also don’t know how I can get the rest of my stuff ready for the move. I know I am supposed to purge things but the problem is that I don’t really have all that much to purge. My office, which I inherited, has all these old pictures on the wall of students, employees, and employers gone past. I know who maybe two of them are. If it were up to me, the pictures would all get red dots. I don’t want them in my new space. I don’t think I can throw them away though. Maybe someone else will want them in their new space? I just don’t want to deal with stuff that isn’t mine. In addition to the pictures I have a bunch of books, magazines, and assorted gunk that came with the office. I guess I can just toss it. That will feel kind of nice.

The biggest hassle about the move is that I have to take all my shoes home. The Eight or so pairs of heels that live under my desk are quite happy there and don’t’ really want to be carted back to my apartment and then brought to the new office. I thought about throwing them in the moving bins we will eventually be getting but we have been instructed to bring home “personal items”. I would assume that includes my shoes. If there is room in my bins they are so going in there. Screw it.

One wind song left. Four random new ones.

1. I listen to the wind/ To the wind of my soul/ Where I’ll end up well I think/ Only God really knows. The Wind of my Soul, Cat Stevens. Identified by Mood Indigo

2. Once I had a love and it was a gas/ Soon turned out had a heart of glass/ Seemed like the real thing, only to find/ Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind. Heart of Glass, Blondie. Identified by Katrina

3. Oh Elise it doesn't matter what you say/ I just can't stay here every yesterday/ Like keep on acting out the same. A Letter to Elise, The Cure. Identified by Danielle

4. These are the games that we employ/ I am a girl and you’re a boy/ No matter what you said to me/ I didn’t have the energy.

5. Can you hear them/ The helicopters/ Are in New York/ No need for words now/ We sit in silence. This Mess We're In, PJ Harvey featuring Thom Yorke. Identified by WLFG