Mismunandi

Spent some time analyzing my desk today. It’s not small – in fact it’s quite roomy: about 3½’ x 2½’, bigger than my dorm desk last year, complete with a plan of wood that pulls out on the side as an armrest, footrest, or extra writing space, depending on the day. My binders for class are packed away in a drawer; a metal bookcase holds most of my books (about a foot of which are literature anthologies and novels…spot the English major), a bulletin/dry-erase board, my clock, and a picture of my family, the only picture I brought to college with me. (When you live in a room this size, you learn to nix things like that to make room for the essentials.) Other than a dusted laptop screen, I can’t really pride myself on being neat at my desk.

The common denominator on all the surfaces in our room (and the lounge…and the bathroom…and the sidewalk outside our door) are bobby pins. EVERYWHERE. I’m developing a writer’s habits by jotting thoughts on scraps of paper and flinging them on the desk on my way out the door to class. Notes, handouts, and old essays sit in a pile to my left, neat for now but usually sliding through the gap in the end-board onto my bed, where my Literature binder has taken up residence because there’s no space for it on the desk. (And why would I bother to put it away if I’m going to use it at some point in the next two weeks?) Amid the books and papers are (ashamedly) dishes that have yet to be done. My literature anthologies are no longer covered with only dust, but also house this morning’s breakfast bowl and a plate from lunch on Sunday. (That’s actually a complete lie, I have touched each of those books at least twice in the last two days. But for right now, they are, in fact, crowned with dishes.) Of course the most-used item in my room – my coffee mug – stands ever faithful by my computer, along with my keys that I will probably forget when I leave for class tomorrow morning. Old cards and notes, Valentine’s Day messages (those mass-produced cardlets usually bought at drugstores with Blow-Pops or Starbursts), and loose sticks of gum speckle the rest of the free surface. This may explain why I’m writing now from the lounge.

Every now and then I’ll have a claustrophobic attack and run around, usually very late at night, growling, “Must. Clean. EVERYTHING.” But most days it stays like this. Let me assure you, I am by no means a slob: my laundry is done weekly and does not smell between washings, my bed is most of the time made, and the garbage rarely spills out of the can. (I am on good terms with my roommate and would very much like to keep it that way.) But my desk is my space. Other people may sit on my bed, my trashcan is often used by visitors, that’s all fine. But only once or twice has anyone ever used my desk. It is my dominion: often unsightly, but I am used to the clutter.

I think it says something about my character. Obviously the books say “reader,” and the post-its with out-of-context quotes that make sense only to be reveal a thinker with oddities filling the brain. I suspect my future apartment will look like this one day: my own systematic nightmare, slightly more chaotic than organized. To me, though it makes sense: if I need my First-Year Seminar altered syllabus, it will always be in this pile, and my journal will never belong anywhere else except between Jo’s Boys and my notebook filled with quotes.

It's my space, the only place on campus that I truly call my own. And I will clutter it as I please.