From The Desk of DC
There is a stack of DayMinder brand desk calendars on a bookcase in my office. They rest partly obscured by the sprawling tendrils of a prayer plant that I grew from a cutting given to me by a co-worker almost ten years ago. The plant has some dead leaves that I really should cut but I don’t. It’s fall. I should have some dead vegetation in here to honor the season, shouldn’t I?
The DayMinder brand desk calendars go back to 1999. On my desk I have a DayMinder brand desk calendar for 2009 open to the week of November 9, and underneath the dwindling stack of pages on the right hand side there is a DayMinder brand desk calendar for 2010. To the right of all of that is my rolodex. Rolodexes were on every desk when I started, now I would say the majority of desks on this floor do not. Progress. The age of electronic communications.
Every Monday morning I come in and turn the page on my DayMinder brand desk calendar. There are four boxes on each page. On the left hand page there is a box showing all the months of the year in black font on gray except the current one which is in black font on white. The other three boxes hold lines for Monday, Thursday and Friday while the page on the right side has boxes for Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. This configuration enables the user to read the week left to right starting with Monday as the second box on the top of the left hand page and continuing across to the right hand side of the page to Tuesday and Wednesday before returning to the first box on the bottom of the left hand page for Thursday then reading right to Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Then you turn the page and do it again. And again. And again. And again.
When I take a whole week off from work I sometimes leave the calendar on the week of my departure and sometimes I flip ahead of the week of my return. Either way the week of my vacation which was printed for the sole purpose and reason of lying open in the light on my desk for its own time never gets to do so. It is passed over, forgotten, unused. It has been created for no reason. It never needed to exist. I feel bad for it so I always write in my vacation on the week with an arrow running left to right on both the top and bottom boxes so at least it got some use, had some purpose. Everything that is created should have a purpose, shouldn’t it? Even a couple of DayMinder brand desk calendar pages? There is probably no worse hell than to exist without a purpose.
There’s a fan in my office. My office tends to be very hot in the winter, sometimes reaching 80 degrees because of the skinny women who dress inappropriately for the season and wander about delicately coughing into their hands and wearing sweaters and scarves indoors who complain to the office manager that it is too cold. I keep a digital thermometer to argue the opposite. I tell people I’m going to wear short-sleeved shirts to work in December and January and February and sometimes I do though only on casual Fridays because as much of a big talker as I am I’m not much of a rebel. I’m too old and it’s too pointless and aggravating. I just sit and flip the page every week and periodically calculate how long it is until I don’t have to flip the pages any more or at least how long it is until I get to rob a couple pages of their purpose by going on vacation (though always giving them the consolation prize-purpose of noting the vacation, they have a new purpose of documenting my absence from the chair two eighteen inches from where they rest).
That fan I mentioned, sometimes that fan flips the pages prematurely and the pages wave at me offering glimpses of the future. Good days and bad days, work days and holidays and weekend days with obligations. I used to be better about writing things in the DayMinder brand desk calendar but now I use Outlook reminders a lot at the office. The older DayMinder brand desk calendars have birthdays and deathdays and anniversaries and games and concerts and trips and all kinds of things in them, the later ones have somewhat less information. I have to be better at keeping notes in my DayMinder brand desk calendar because maybe someday I can use the information to write an essay and then I’ll write the date of the essay in the DayMinder brand desk calendar. If we don’t document ourselves, who will?
The DayMinder brand desk calendars go back to 1999. On my desk I have a DayMinder brand desk calendar for 2009 open to the week of November 9, and underneath the dwindling stack of pages on the right hand side there is a DayMinder brand desk calendar for 2010. To the right of all of that is my rolodex. Rolodexes were on every desk when I started, now I would say the majority of desks on this floor do not. Progress. The age of electronic communications.
Every Monday morning I come in and turn the page on my DayMinder brand desk calendar. There are four boxes on each page. On the left hand page there is a box showing all the months of the year in black font on gray except the current one which is in black font on white. The other three boxes hold lines for Monday, Thursday and Friday while the page on the right side has boxes for Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. This configuration enables the user to read the week left to right starting with Monday as the second box on the top of the left hand page and continuing across to the right hand side of the page to Tuesday and Wednesday before returning to the first box on the bottom of the left hand page for Thursday then reading right to Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Then you turn the page and do it again. And again. And again. And again.
When I take a whole week off from work I sometimes leave the calendar on the week of my departure and sometimes I flip ahead of the week of my return. Either way the week of my vacation which was printed for the sole purpose and reason of lying open in the light on my desk for its own time never gets to do so. It is passed over, forgotten, unused. It has been created for no reason. It never needed to exist. I feel bad for it so I always write in my vacation on the week with an arrow running left to right on both the top and bottom boxes so at least it got some use, had some purpose. Everything that is created should have a purpose, shouldn’t it? Even a couple of DayMinder brand desk calendar pages? There is probably no worse hell than to exist without a purpose.
There’s a fan in my office. My office tends to be very hot in the winter, sometimes reaching 80 degrees because of the skinny women who dress inappropriately for the season and wander about delicately coughing into their hands and wearing sweaters and scarves indoors who complain to the office manager that it is too cold. I keep a digital thermometer to argue the opposite. I tell people I’m going to wear short-sleeved shirts to work in December and January and February and sometimes I do though only on casual Fridays because as much of a big talker as I am I’m not much of a rebel. I’m too old and it’s too pointless and aggravating. I just sit and flip the page every week and periodically calculate how long it is until I don’t have to flip the pages any more or at least how long it is until I get to rob a couple pages of their purpose by going on vacation (though always giving them the consolation prize-purpose of noting the vacation, they have a new purpose of documenting my absence from the chair two eighteen inches from where they rest).
That fan I mentioned, sometimes that fan flips the pages prematurely and the pages wave at me offering glimpses of the future. Good days and bad days, work days and holidays and weekend days with obligations. I used to be better about writing things in the DayMinder brand desk calendar but now I use Outlook reminders a lot at the office. The older DayMinder brand desk calendars have birthdays and deathdays and anniversaries and games and concerts and trips and all kinds of things in them, the later ones have somewhat less information. I have to be better at keeping notes in my DayMinder brand desk calendar because maybe someday I can use the information to write an essay and then I’ll write the date of the essay in the DayMinder brand desk calendar. If we don’t document ourselves, who will?
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