The Quick Trick Brick Stack

It looms.

It looms, and SOME days it lours ... but most days, it is invisible.

The stack in my cube. The monolith. The file cabinet, full of those things I actually can get rid of now, can send away and make room for other things. The chair next to it, on which are piled the first things out of the cabinet, to ship away - pulled out of the cabinet so I cannot forget them, and so far not shipped for almost a week now.

On top of the pulled things to be shipped, the box in which to fit at least some of them - not yet shipping-labled, not yet filled, not yet taped shut and banished to some shipping company's good offices.

On top of the cabinet, a hodgepodge archive of meeting binders from my boss's looming stack, now in my possession for maybe a year and a half. These date as far back as 2003 (sez the theoretical label taped onto one of them, in an early attempt to get him to let me recycle these things).

On top of the binders, that one Christmas gift of chocolates, from that one vendor, sent to our former corporate guy, who moved out to work at one of our locations.



This stack, dense an edifice as it is, is not disagreeable; though it takes up much space in a cube not overabundantly blessed with square footage.

It isn't even an embarrassment; I would venture to be it's as invisible to everyone else as it is to me - as their cubes and offices are to me.

And it isn't even a problem. The sorting out of binders dating almost to the era in which my dad was still a living soul is not what one might call a pressing engagement.

And yet, and yet.



The day you do that huge stack of filing, before tax time and managing THAT task ...

The day you finally get 'round to cleaning out the basement ...

The day you reinstall the printer or clean up your workdesk or go through all that stuff in the pantry or linen closet ...



The day you *DO* ...


It's a good day, isn't it?

My mom was over in December, and she and I tackled my basement, as we had a month or two previously, tackling some weeding and trimming in my yard.

My mom is GREAT to work with, on projects. My sister-in-law, I remember painting my living room with her. Kind of oddly fun, making the house pretty together. Mr. X used to be a great working partner, too; I recall us cleaning house, or wrestling my lawn into shape with an odd amount of affection. Even that weekend we took on so much - packing, shipping, shopping, errands, prepping - so he could go so many thousands of miles away, for so long ...

Working partners are wonderful, and they help get you doing those things you WANT to do, maybe don't even find distasteful - and yet somehow never quite seem to get to ...



Soon, a couple of the best friends I have and best writers I know are coming over for a working session. We'll spend a nice chunk of time in parallel play, just writing - and then we'll talk, looking for feedback, direction, encouragement. Then maybe pizza and Sherlock, if they don't get entirely sick of me.

We'll knock our stacks down.

Who're your best writing friends?