Environment

It's odd to become aware of one's own inconsistencies. 

I'm sitting here avoiding cleaning my desk and the sheer oddity of the paraphenalia scattered across it strikes me as worthy of a line or two.

The bulky stuff is, these days, probably common to most writers. From left to right it consists of: 

• A printer
• The left speaker of a pair
• A black riser that my laptop lurks under and that supports ...
• A monitor and
• A desk light
• The right speaker of a pair (Pandora Radio is playing Brubeck through them)
• A table lamp

Pretty consistent so far, right? But wait. Going back to  the left:

• A staple gun
• A short stack of books consisting of Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit and Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds
• A stack of CD-Rs in jewel cases containing backed-up data topped by one of the pair of disks of Janis Ian's concert album Working Without a Net
• Two packages of origami paper
• A small spiral-bound notebook
• A stack of music CDs consisting of:

• Fretwork - Purcell: The Fantazias and In Nomines
• Dave Brubeck Trio and Gerry Mulligan - Live at the Berlin Philharmonie
• Michaela Petri and Keith Jarrett - Handel: Recorder Sonatas -
• Louis Prima - Let's Swing It
• The Love Dogs - Heavy Petting
• Nickel Creek - Nickel Creek
• Wendy Carlos - The Well-Tempered Synthesizer
• Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy - The Other Side

• An almost empty pack of Djarum Lights
• A large and bulky computer headset
• A disposable cell-phone
• A stapler
• A netsuke of rats on a bag of grain
• A small semi-functioning digital camera
• Another short stack of books consisting of: a 1966 Indian cookbook and O'Reilly's HTML Pocket Reference
• A small stone ashtray sits on top of the books with the last cigarette from the now empty pack fuming in it.
• A disposable lighter
• A pack of small post-its used for bookmarks
• A coaster advertising the last high-tech firm I worked for full-time with the remains of an iced four-shot Americano on it
• An brown ceramic jar that once held preserved Tien-tsin vegetables that now is overstuffed with an assortment of pens and pencils
• Two stray pens
• A Petersen System full bent tobacco pipe
• A can of Frogmorton tobacco
• A Leatherman pocket tool
• A full pack of Djarum lights
• A stack of random papers that I WILL get to eventually held in place by a Japanese cast-iron turtle paperweight.
• A pair of broken reading glasses