Neat

November 17, 1998

I organized my office today. There were perhaps twenty to thirty pieces of paper, all connected to one project or another, in one pile on my desk. They'd been there for more than a week. That's too long, and I made a special trip back to Jepson Hall where the supplies are kept for Information Services just so I would have the folders I needed to organize my files again. When I left today, the only things on my nice desk were the stapler, the scotch tape, my card holder and one binder.

I almost want to go back and put the binder away.

I was not like this growing up. Matt, my junior year roommate, could tell you how I used my closet as my laundry hamper. When the pile in the closet got to be waist high, I called a service that did laundry by the pound. I distinctly recall a seventeen-pound load. The service came to campus, picked it up, took it all away, and brought it back.

I've always known my mess. I know exactly where everything is in the mess. But somewhere along the way I learned that the mess can make working people nervous. I guess they can't be as certain as I am about things in the mess. Since coming to Richmond, I've gotten better and better about keeping the place neat. Carolyn in the Registrar's Office was a great influence on me for getting and staying organized. At some point over the past five years, something clicked and I started to have a clean desk. Nothing on it.

While I see some of the benefits of having everything in its place, I am outside most of those benefits. I know where things are either way. Perhaps the biggest benefit to paper in folders is that if the Huguenot bridge should collapse while I'm on it, dashing me on the smooth round boulders below, anyone would be able to enter my office and find things.

The Huguenot bridge might just collapse some day. I've driven across that bridge for seven of the past ten years, and I've always been fascinated by the dozens and dozens of patches that have been done to the bridge. It's almost as bumpy as a cobblestone road. Since I've started walking across the bridge, I've had a better opportunity to examine it. The pale green paint on the metal railings has peeled almost everywhere, leaving brown rusty spots. When I get to a point about two-thirds of the way from the north side of the bridge to the south side, the bridge shakes with every passing car.

The city of Richmond closes the bridge five or six times a year now for repair. I've always wanted to walk across the bridge when it's closed to see what they're doing. When the bridge reopens, it always looks the same as it did before, only sometimes there are painted markings on the sidewalk or the roadway. Just this past Summer there were long pink ribbons tied in three places along the bridge. Are those the places most likely to fail?

I'm not the type to envision disasters, but that bridge (born in 1949) is scary.

It's warm in Richmond. Too warm. At one point today it was 70 degrees. In November. The sky was perfect blue and there were big puffy clouds up there. There are still some leaves on the trees on campus, but the pine trees are becoming more noticeable.

Listening: Dulcinea (Toad the Wet Sprocket); Ten (Pearl Jam)