12.12.2007 - 1:18 p.m.

I have a clean desk and I don�t know what to do with it.

It started by accident�I came in early to grade journals, because the kids need them back before they give me their finals, and heaven forbid that they don�t know to the fraction of the nearest tenth of a decimal what their grade is.

But then the journals went quicker than I thought they would, so I casually picked up a few of the piles in front of me. They were mostly sorted, I noticed. Because once, several months ago, I�d meant to file them until I ran into the difficulty of having no folders.

I have folders now, I realized. Because I bought them, all those months ago. They are still in the box under that other pile.

So now I have a very small pile of the unsorted, somewhat complicated papers, the ones that don�t fit neatly into my filing scheme� and a huge expanse of desk. I have no journals left in my tote, I know where all of my pens are, and this suddenly feels like a place to work instead of a place to procrastinate. Only it needs a star chart on the ceiling, and maybe a plant. And I actually want to get it a star chart and a plant, instead of wallowing over the impossibility of all the things I haven�t started because they�re all impossible.

It�s a little sad that I record every instance of positive thinking I ever notice here, and that when I do, I always sound so flummoxed over it. All I can think of at these times is that I want to always know that I can be happier, that I can live better, that it really isn�t that hard to pay your damned mortgage on time already.

But it never sticks. And I only record a fraction of the pessimistic times�Every day, I spend so much of my energy trying to assess How I Am Doing. (Hint: The assumed answer is �not well.� What I am really doing is dwelling on the myriad ways this manifests: See fingernails, gnawed again, and dress pants, scrapped for jeans because they are all unwashed. Oh! And car windshield, still being screamed at. Or wedding photos, still not sent to inlaws. Novel(s), still unwritten.)

But today, I am doing well. Today, we have:

Journals, graded
Desk, found
File system, created
Lunch, extant and even sort of nutritious
Phone, actually being charged
Phone, not full of unchecked messages
One bookshelf, organized, with places of honor for Neil Gaiman and Jack Kerouac
Sunshine, fucking brilliant

� I have a window now, did I tell you that? It is a nice window, with daylight and a flowerbed on the other side. Such that I have to close my shades for most of the late morning/early afternoon because the glare makes my screen illegible, but I�ll take that. You hear that, borderline depressive personality? I�ll take that.

-stonebridge

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