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Post by Jane on May 28, 2008 7:59:08 GMT -5
So we have a visual of you, sitting in all your dapper clothes, sitting at your computer. So where's your computer? Give us a verbal (or literal) photo of your room, your desk, your wherever you are.
And, by the way, from the descriptions of our attire, it sounds like we could all use an appearance on "What Not to Wear."
I meet with my dopey cronies in the study/computer room/den, originally intended to be a bedroom, right off the kitchen. The walls are yellow, hardwood floors, a huge Matisse cut-outs poster in primary colors on one wall, a painting by a local "outsider art" guy named Reb on another wall (it's a stylized picture of a cat, also primary colors), the other wall a plethora (love that word) of family photos in a variety of frames. Regular desk with reference books, black leather chair, computer desk, side table. Bookends are iron cats from a thrift store, another cool piece is a yellow cat looking into a bowl, also thrift shop. Oh, and a tv.
We have a digital camera. Maybe I'll *try* some photos.
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Post by gailkate on May 28, 2008 9:15:19 GMT -5
No pictures from me - uh-unh, no way. I have pretty much the same kind of furniture and accessories (as they say on HGTV), but there the similariteis end. My desk is unusable for actual writing, because the drifting stacks cover every surface not occupied by books and coffee cups. Over the TV is a sweet picture of St. Michael taken from an illustrated manuscript. He's been busy writing, and turns to face the viewer with a look that clearly says "boo-boo." Maybe I'll take a picture of him.
Cats and dogs and pictures and stuff. Lots of stuff.
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Post by slb2 on May 28, 2008 9:28:03 GMT -5
Computer is at a computer desk. I think it's not too messy. My desk sits to the right of me. It is messy, but its an organized mess. I like it that way. This is all in the dining room where the adults can monitor the children's computer usage. It's bright and sunny, facing the east, facing St. Paul, facing ThoS and GK. If I reach out at arm's length, I have Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions, and Roget's Thesaurus at hand. In my work bag, by my feet I can grab my Franklin's Talking Thesaurus, too. Then there's always this, my on-line thesaurus to enhance my life. There's a phone, a stereo remote, and a phone recorder (for interviewing) and two pairs of headphones to my left, at arm's reach also. Two printers (B&W and color) and a three-hole paper punch above my head. The Last Supper is up on the wall, too. Next to Monet.
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Post by Gracie on May 28, 2008 13:33:00 GMT -5
My study is the room at the front of the house (in other words, an enclosed porch, but nevermind, it doesn't look like one from the inside.)
It has paneled walls, and I put down a deep blue Oriental rug on the floor because I hate beige carpet, and sheer paisley curtains at the windows--blue, ivory, peach and green. Grizzy bought me a Mission-style cherry desk and chair when I went back to college, and there's filing cabinets on either side of it. And a green velvet club chair in the corner, where he sits, sometimes, and read while I'm writing, because I like his company.
I have racks and racks of CDs because I must have my music. And wicker shelves because I have so much stuff. I have many, many framed photos and lithos of New York City--the skyline, Lennon's memorial at Strawberry Field, the Majestic Theatre where I saw "Phantom of the Opera," and a painting of the firemen raising the flag on 9/11. Grizzy and the kid take pleasure in finding things for my 'New York wall.' Most recently I added a huge, huge, HUGE photo shot by Inge Morath (whose work I love, and who was married to Arthur Miller, whose work I love) of a couple in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, circa 1964. Having walked across the bridge one evening at sunset, that photo is particularly evocative.
I have lots of things on my desk--stacks of books on writing, my current journal, my work in progress. Mugs full of pens. Photos of my loved ones. A photo of me laughing SOOO hard with a dear friend at a $500 a plate fundraiser.
My printer is below my desk. Need to add a phone, and will, this summer.
Oh, and...I DO have Monet--six of them...but they're all in the bedroom, because I find them so restful.....
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Post by liriodendron on May 28, 2008 14:17:48 GMT -5
I have a laptop, so I could be anywhere...
However, when I am at home, I am generally sitting at the roll-top desk in the living room. It is, ahem, somewhat untidy. Of course, that is easily fixed by simply closing the top. My husband wishes I would do that more often.
At the moment, if you peeked on my desk, you'd find my newish copy of Microsoft Office for Mac (which I need to install), a wireless mouse (which I hardly ever use), a stack of blank CD-Rs, my iPod, two watches, two CDs from the library, a portable external hard drive (white, like my MacBook), a couple of magazines, some post-it notes, two rolls of pennies (I'm rich!), three pencils, a small clay pot that my son made me for Mother's Day, two pairs of earrings (I've been wondering where those were), and several scraps of paper on which I've scribbled little notes (one appears to be directions to someplace). On top of the desk are three photographs - two of my kids when they were small and a snapshot of our family from a few years ago, an arrangement of fake flowers, and a couple of knick-knacks that were given to me as gifts but are not really my taste at all.
The desk is in the front corner of the room, which is painted an oh-so-boring off white. When I need a break from the computer screen, I can gaze out the windows on either side of me. Right now the rhododendrons are just coming into bloom.
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Post by michael on May 28, 2008 17:22:12 GMT -5
When I post from home I’m in a very small Japanese style room; tatami mats on the floor, paper covered sliding doors instead of curtains and a wood grain paneled ceiling. I have a Toshiba laptop PC on a wood desk that is cluttered with digital cameras, a few bottles of wine, a dictionary, reading light and some wires for connecting stereo components (weekend project stuff). The room itself is also cluttered; it’s our catch all room – whenever we have guests coming over, everything gets tossed into this room and the door is shut. This is also the room where we stack up the news papers for the once a month recycle day. There’s a nice stereo system in this room too. It faces the sliding glass door which opens up to my small covered patio. When I sit on the patio I open the door and listen to music – it sounds so much better than listening to a portable boom box.
Mike
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Post by booklady on May 29, 2008 4:53:04 GMT -5
I took this photo a week or two ago to show the current chaotic state of the area I spend a lot of time in. The computer is over by the door, and I sit in the chair with the red cushion as I type this. My mother's day flowers from my younger son are on the kitchen table, which is invariably covered with school papers, books, things to think about, and right now has a bunch of photo processing envelopes from seven years of taking pictures at school. That laundry basket on the floor as freshly washed baby clothes and blankets from, oh, about 18 years ago, which I couldn't bear to get rid of and so packed and stored in a crawl space upstairs. I had to clean it all out, and so I washed the baby stuff to take to the Salvation Army. Boxes for packing, the vacuum, and probably dirty dishes over there in the sink. The basket of clothes is gone now and so are the flowers. They are replaced by a larger pile of boxes and a bowl of oranges on the table. I'm really not using my time wisely this morning.
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Post by gailkate on May 29, 2008 9:04:22 GMT -5
Looks like perfectly acceptable clutter to me, Bl. And your floor is spotless!
But exactly when do you get up? Are you one of the legions of Americans who don't get enough sleep? (This almost qualifies as a sub-board question.)
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Post by Gracie on May 29, 2008 12:38:24 GMT -5
Bookie, I just KNEW you were my sister. I love your space, and your style. And everyone knows a mom's work is never done, and we never sleep, do we.....and there's no such thing as not using time wisely. What you were doing is essential for your mental health, I am convinced. I know this, because that's the reason I listen to music so loud when I'm alone in the house or the car.....can't hear the voices in my head, that way......
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Post by joew on May 29, 2008 12:45:38 GMT -5
Booklady, that looks about the way my kitchen might look if I tidied it up.
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Post by joew on May 29, 2008 18:55:24 GMT -5
Where am I (as Perot's running mate might have put it), you ask.
I'm in the cellar. Without giving every last detail, suffice it to say that the computer is on a built-in workbench and the keyboard on a typewriter table in front of it. To the left of the computer is a telephone, then a printer, then my brother's laptop. To the right of the computer is a printer which stopped working when power was restored after an outage. Leaning against the wall behind that is a 2'x3' corkboard with a clock and a calendar hung on it. On another typewriter table in front of that printer is the oldest printer still here — one which no longer prints in color but is okay for B+W. There is clutter all over the place. About 10 feet to my right is a cluttered desk for my paperwork (bill paying and the like). The furnace and water heater ore five feet away, over my left shoulder. There are a lot of bookshelves with my college books, various books which I accumulated over the years, political science journals I subscribed to in the sixties and seventies when I still thought I might get a teaching job some time, and a couple of multi-volume scripture commentaries which I use to prepare homilies. Part of my LP record collection is down here. And of course the washer and dryer also are in the cellar. The computer area is illuminated by a hanging fixture with two 30" fluorescent light tubes.
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Post by booklady on May 29, 2008 19:07:42 GMT -5
Joe, do you have a source of heat for the winter? This must be a finished area of the basement. Mine is a depressing place, and really too damp for finishing even though it's not really leaky except on those warm days after a long, really cold spell, when the snow melts but can't go anywhere but into the basement because the ground is frozen.
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Post by booklady on May 29, 2008 19:10:35 GMT -5
Looks like perfectly acceptable clutter to me, Bl. And your floor is spotless! But exactly when do you get up? Are you one of the legions of Americans who don't get enough sleep? (This almost qualifies as a sub-board question.) gk, I get up around 5 a.m. on school days, often 5:30 or 6 on other days. I love the early morning. I've slept much, much better since I haven't been drinking wine. I went long years without enough sleep, when it was just too noisy around me and there was nowhere I could go for quiet, and I nearly went out of my mind. I am so, so thankful now for a quiet room to sleep in.
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Post by joew on May 29, 2008 22:27:02 GMT -5
It's just the cement floor painted red, and the concrete walls, painted off white. We take some water in a heavy rainstorm, but a lot less then when we first moved here. A neighbor caulked a major leak, and I found a downspout that was falling apart. So Now there's just a bit. But still, it's unfinished, and I need a sweater in winter, and even so my feet get cold if I stay down here too long. But it's also pleasantly cool in the summer.
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Post by gailkate on May 29, 2008 23:37:48 GMT -5
In my experience, no basement is water-proof. When we were hunting for a house I was obsessed with hunting out hidden leaks and damp walls. This house, on a fairly high spot in St. Paul, appeared never to have been anything but Mojave dry. No evidence even of the infamous downpour the previous year that had damaged just about every house in the Twin Cities. The floor was horrid '60s linoleum tiles, but firmly stuck tiles. So we put down some rugs and Jerry set up all his home office stuff, wires running along the floorboards, and lived in happy obliviousness till the next horrendous weather event : sudden thaw after months of heavy snow followed by 10 inches of rain in a few hours. Water seeped up everywhere and rushed in along two different walls in different rooms, so the two torrents met in the middle. It was like the 40 days and 40 nights in a matter of hours. We're lucky not to have been electrocuted while trying to get all the equipment and wires off the floor. We had new drainage put in outside the house, which keeps any major flooding at bay, but the floor still sweats in a heavy rain. We scraped up all the linoeum and painted the floor, but even that was a mistake, because the concrete could no longer "breathe." Who knew? Concrete needs to breathe. So Joe, you're right to look on the bright side and see that dampish coolness as a benefit. You could get a space heater for winter. Your office has a nice subterranean ambience designers would love to duplicate.
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Post by slb2 on May 30, 2008 8:48:27 GMT -5
gk, did you move into your house in 1989? And the flooding happened on March 24, 1990? We lost good books during that storm, too.
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Post by gailkate on May 30, 2008 9:34:15 GMT -5
1988, the year after the massive floods of '87. As we were house-hunting, everyone admitted to having water just that one year, but sometimes you could tell it had been an ongoing problem.
The flood in this house might have been '90, but I was thinking it was a bit later. And yes, losing books is SO galling. It's hard to say "oh well, it's just stuff" about books. And where else are you going to put them but in boxes or bookcases that sit on the floor? Lots of old LPs were soaked from the bottom up, too. I stood them up on tables in the garage, hoping the mustiness would air out, but some were just goners.
Just had a revelation - what happens to a sod house in a heavy rainstorm?
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Post by booklady on May 31, 2008 5:42:26 GMT -5
No one's lost me. I'm still here. ;D When my husband and I moved into this house in 1984, it was very, very tiny. We eventually put an addition it, but at that time I had many boxes of books and my mother-in-law let us store them in her partially-finished upstairs. Doesn't that sound like a nice, cozy, safe place for books? At some point, her roof began to leak, which we did not know for while. But a box of personally-treasured books that had belonged to my father when he was a boy was on the bottom of a stack in an area where the floor got wet. The box didn't take on enough moisture to give the books that ripply-effect water damage, but just enough to attract mold and mildew. I was sick when I discovered it, and I knew there was no saving them. Still, I couldn't part with them but shoved the box up into that crawl space that I cleaned out last month, when I finally took them to the dump.
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Post by gailkate on May 31, 2008 9:16:13 GMT -5
Galling, galling-er, galling-est.
Poor, BL, that is tragic.
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Post by booklady on May 31, 2008 9:47:17 GMT -5
Lesson learned. Hold things in an open palm so it doesn't hurt too much when they are ripped out of your hand. Hey, I have just streamlined seven years worth of tax files. Now I can start shredding the remaining five or six years that I no longer need. My, but this getting rid of paperwork feels good. You should see what I've thrown away from my school files. I'm currently wondering (though this is now Saturday) if those "oh, I must save these" yearly plan and grade books really are "must save".
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Post by doctork on May 31, 2008 12:32:00 GMT -5
I have been thinking of scanning some of the important must-save paperwork, and then storing it electronically while shredding the paper.
I haven't actually done this yet.
For damaged books (not you BL), I have read there are specialists in book restoration who can save such books. I think they like to get them immediately after the disaster, and then I believe the preservation/restoration process involves freezing them, then gradually processing them.
I watched a show on HGTV about building bookshelves for a couple with lots of books. Maybe I should study this as a future basement project.
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Post by gailkate on Jul 10, 2008 17:47:05 GMT -5
Remember this discussion? Jane asked about our surroundings as we post. There was mention of pictures, but no one ever posted any. No pictures from me - uh-unh, no way. I have pretty much the same kind of furniture and accessories (as they say on HGTV), but there the similariteis end. My desk is unusable for actual writing, because the drifting stacks cover every surface not occupied by books and coffee cups. Over the TV is a sweet picture of St. Michael taken from an illustrated manuscript. He's been busy writing, and turns to face the viewer with a look that clearly says "boo-boo." Maybe I'll take a picture of him. Cats and dogs and pictures and stuff. Lots of stuff. I just uploaded some pics and found that I actually did take some of my computer surroundings. Fortunately, the one of the whole desk area is blurry, so I don't have to show you the total mess. but here's the computer wing: And here is the sweet monk who screwed up something: Isn't he the cutest thing? My mother and I bought him probably 35 years ago. We framed him very unprofessionally but eventually a friend ironed him onto foam core so he wouldn't get anymore battered.
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Post by joew on Jul 10, 2008 18:28:43 GMT -5
That looks like a Japanese caption under the picture, but it's too small to be sure.
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Post by booklady on Jul 10, 2008 18:54:13 GMT -5
I've been working on my resume and professional teaching portfolio all afternoon. I think I'll take a picture of my work space in its present circumstance, and post it.
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Post by booklady on Jul 10, 2008 19:01:22 GMT -5
I just love having a digital camera.
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Post by gailkate on Jul 10, 2008 19:20:34 GMT -5
Oh Pam, I love you! This is soooo familiar.
Joe, the script is definitely not Japanese, but I don't know what it is. Doesn't look like Greek alphabet either - I'd guess very ornate Latin abbreviations and numbers.
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Post by booklady on Jul 10, 2008 19:23:23 GMT -5
I love your monk. He's very nice!
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Post by joew on Jul 10, 2008 21:00:27 GMT -5
bl —
The workspace has possibilities, although I'd need a counter or another desk to pile papers on.
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Post by booklady on Jul 10, 2008 21:24:25 GMT -5
The rocking chair was still open when the picture was taken.
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Post by jspnrvr on Jul 11, 2008 5:27:10 GMT -5
Duly noted, Advil bottle, lower right corner of the picture. Doing OK there, booky? Unpacking aches and pains or resume headache? Better living through chemistry for those of us who have achieved medium age.
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