The Mast-Head: Office Excavation

My thinking was that if I couldn’t manage to clean up my office in February, there was no way I was going to be able to do it at all. So, while Lisa and the kids were in the city to see a Broadway show recently, I began what amounted to paperwork excavation.

One gets used to the piles after a while. My office was certainly a case in point. Durell Godfrey, one of the Star photographers, included a version of my workspace in her recent coloring book for adults, “Color Me Cluttered.” This morning, when she saw the result, she said she might have to return to her drawing board.

Just where all the stuff comes from can be a puzzle. Looking in the kitchen cabinets at home the other day, I noticed that we had an overstock of baking dishes, and I wondered just how many anyone might need. Looking in another cabinet, I saw an object I’d never used and never will, a fluted thing for making a matched pair of baguettes — but why? As for cake pans, do I really need circular ones in nearly every size but none that match? What if I want to make a layer cake?

Among the objects hanging around The Star that need to go are a remarkable number of tables that date to a time when computers took up lots of desk space. In my office, a faux-oak monstrosity occupied one corner, on top of which I had slowly piled hundreds of old photographic negatives, prints, and archival material. Underneath it you might have found a couple of outdated phone books, a pair of official Jackson Pollock Crocs, and, among other things, a dullish blade for a circular saw. 

My co-workers were shocked by the change but there is plenty of work left to do. My strategy is to come in an hour earlier than usual to continue to go through things. Then I’ll tackle the house. Anyone want a baguette pan?