I am grateful to have an office with a window (caulked shut, plastic-covered, and grimy, but a source of some natural light) and a desk with a real wooden top. I admire that lovely wooden top late, late, late on the Friday before I go on vacation. That’s when I maniacally sort, toss and deal with all the paper that my first publisher (and recently retired chamber VP) Linda Toohey tried, unsuccessfully, to teach me to handle once.

Vacation Eve. Nice (for me)

Why can’t I keep things neat? Why can’t I put away each markup, printout, memo, note, letter and resume before proceeding to the next one? If I put my mind to it, I tell myself on the eve of each vacation, I can keep my desk as neat as it is at that moment.

Right.

Clutter creep began the second I returned from vacation, and it didn’t take long to be back to where I was before, with all new stuff.

End of first day back from vacation.

Two weeks later: Clutter creep complete

By the end of my first day back at work, the cover-up was underway. On my desk were Pink Sheets, Saratogians, notebooks, reference check forms, my red coffee mug (a Christmas gift one year from Assistant Managing Editor Betsy DeMars) and a fortune cookie (leftover from lunch, getting my Chinese food fix after vacation on the Cape).

Two weeks later, what do we have: a hopeless morass newspapers, story planning sheets, primary election flyers, 11 Rolodex cards, two DVDs of reporter applicant tests, my watch (which I always take off and sometimes forget), my aforementioned red mug, a travel mug, three water bottles (two of them empty), my cell phone and my iPad.

Well, I hear it’s beautiful out today — and if I wrap this up I can enjoy 30 minutes of daylight. That should be my priority. I can clean my desk tomorrow.