Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

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A clean desk

Kenina-Chan wanted before and after photos of my desk but sadly it did not occur to me to take a before photo so instead I offer you some statistics:

Hours spent cleaning the desk1: 12

Weight of paper to be recycled: 5 kilos (11 pounds)

Weight of garbage: 0.9 kilos (2 pounds)

Number of dead things discovered: classified

Breaks taken during cleaning: lots2

Time spent working at desk since cleaning: 03

And here is a photo of the recycling and garbage removed from the desk during cleaning:

rubbish1.jpg

And here is the clean desk from two different angles as the sun sets4:

deskclean.jpg

cleandesk.jpg

I may never work again.

  1. The largest amount of time was spent sorting (recyclable, rubbish, or to be filed) and filing the crap on the desk. [↩]
  2. I lost count, okay? [↩]
  3. I’m too afraid of messing it up again. [↩]
  4. At barely five in the afternoon!!! [↩]

Posted by Justine at 20:34, 6 November 2007 under Writing life | 15 Comments »

Comments

  1. Kadie-Wa Says:

    Wow…that’s alot of paper! i wonder how many pounds are on my desk.

    I like your desk. no i lied. I luv your desk. i think that those kinds are soooo sweet! i love those kinds. i think i’m going to save up for one like that. all i’m using now is a table that’s sides are folded down so it can be used as a desk. and i still call it a desk.

    November 6th, 2007 at 9:08 PM

  2. jessiegirl Says:

    do you have a worm hole or a sub space bubble surrounding your desk in order to pack more stuff onto such a small space? Seriously? 12 hours and 11 lbs or paper? from such a small space? you, my dear, may be the new packrat queen.

    November 6th, 2007 at 9:25 PM

  3. kim Says:

    how tall were the piles of paper? 4 feet?

    November 6th, 2007 at 9:31 PM

  4. hillary! Says:

    Seriously! and that truly is an awesome desk. I wish I could make one like it in metal shop. But that would be expensive.

    November 6th, 2007 at 9:59 PM

  5. Kaleb Nation Says:

    my desk is so messy right now, I might fall into it and be buried in envelopes and notebooks.

    November 6th, 2007 at 10:31 PM

  6. Tim Says:

    Woo-hoo! more power to you. I’ve been there, and i know how daunting it is to go back to that weirdly clean desk when you find it unfamiliar, disorienting, and off-putting in its neatness. A simple piece of advice, f.w.i.w.: don’t worry about keeping it *this* clean all the time, just try to interrupt your packrattitude earlier in the process on the next go-round. It’s not about perfection, only about doing it a little better each time.

    November 6th, 2007 at 10:46 PM

  7. 7. Justine Says:

    People! You have so got the wrong idea. I am not a packrat. I shudder at the thought. I despise things. I collect nothing!

    I’m just lazy. The desk is where I dump things I need to get to at some point. But “some point” rarely rolls around. Dunno why . . .

    November 6th, 2007 at 11:25 PM

  8. Marlena Says:

    wow! that’s a pretty small desk to have so much paper/garbage/dead things on it! you should definately take a before picture next time you clean it!

    ahem. which is probably not what you want to think about, after being so productive and having it be all pretty and such…..

    November 7th, 2007 at 12:55 AM

  9. Katerate Says:

    Holy crap dude. That is too small of a desk to spend 12 hours cleaning.

    November 7th, 2007 at 2:29 AM

  10. shloopy Says:

    Wow. I’m deeply impressed. I could work on my desk for…. ummm… 22 hours? This morning, I found a spider living in my keyboard, and I type a lot every day, so it proves you are never safe from spiders. grr.

    By the way, Kenina-chan is going to wake up, and be so happy you mentioned her Justine! (Also, happy b-day kenina!)

    November 7th, 2007 at 7:36 AM

  11. Kenina-chan Says:

    Thankies!! Your desk is beautiful. Just the other day I took 37 post-its (without the stickiness) off my desk and organized them, wrote what it said on them in a notebook, and then recycled. Unfortunately, I still have nail polish, 3 notebooks- no wait- 5, stuffed animals, textbooks, eyeliner, colored pencils, candy, a nail file, about 20 hair ties, and normal stuff: (duct tape, scissors, paper, glue, jewelry, flyswatters, purses, a flashlight, rulers, a swiss army thingy….) Maybe I should clean my desk… Happy birthday Shloopy!!!

    November 7th, 2007 at 5:55 PM

  12. Lizzy-wa Says:

    hehe. but thats a pretty small desk. how did all that stuff fit on there?!

    -Lizzy-wa OUT! :o

    November 7th, 2007 at 9:13 PM

  13. Corey Says:

    Messy desk enthusiasts (like myself) find that over the years we become architectural engineers in stacking dynamics and the science of beverage-container-induced stressed to paper-and-CD-case support structures. I think a couple of mine would’ve had Frank Lloyd Wright himself lost in awe.

    November 8th, 2007 at 1:28 PM

  14. 14. Justine Says:

    Shloopy & Kenina-Chan: Happy birthday!!!

    November 10th, 2007 at 12:25 PM

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. [...] everyone else, but I find it fascinating to see writers’ desks. Justine Larbalestier has blogged about her recent desk ...

    Pingback from Justine Larbalestier’s desk « BookBoy on 8 November, 2007 at 11:37 PM

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