Mean Monday on Sunday Night: PR’s Office
This is my office where I work about six months of the year. I was just there this weekend and I took some pictures to share with you all. I am a slob. I roll around in a pile of dust and books. Make fun of me. Talk about how happy you are that you don’t really know me. I am going to explain stuff and post some nice close-ups after the jump:
This is where I sit.
My computer is missing from this picture because I’ve already packed it up. I love the light flowing in through the window. I often stare out the window and say a prayer. Usually the prayer goes like this: Thank you, God. And um, that’s it. That green and white afghan was crocheted by my mother when I was a baby. It is very important to me. As a child, the fact that she had made me that, made me feel loved, and otherwise, for a large part of my childhood, I felt disliked or worse by her. So I’ve clung to that blanket for 40 years. It’s filthy. I know, you don’t believe that! But, really! It is not very clean and has all sorts of holes in it from mice and shit.
Um, some books!
I have some books in my office. Those boxes are full of books. Also, if you look closely at the bookshelf, you’ll notice a pile of magazines. Lots of them are Zoetrope and The New York Review of Books. Also, many of them are Victoria Secret catalogues. I masturbate to them. It goes something like this: I pretend I’m Gisela Bunchen getting fucked by a quarterback.
This is my couch/bed in my office.
Ah. I spend much time on this couch. I just kick all the books off of it. I know, I know. You think I carefully place them somewhere. But no! I kick them to the floor. Then I trip over them later. I read on that couch. I nap on that couch. Once, I got in a huge fight with my husband and spent an entire day on that couch. I locked the door and he kept trying to come in and said I was “scaring him”. I got really fucking hungry around dinnertime and came out. Ah. My office. It’s like a nest of chewed on newspaper a mouse sleeps on. I can recognize four books on that couch looking at this picture- a really old Granta that has an essay on violence and young men that I tried to find and did, for a piece I’m working on about violence, a Jim Thompson book, the book The Mother’s Guide To Sex (Three Rivers Press) to which I have a small contribution and Kyle Minor’s excellent collection, In The Devil’s Territory. And I know for a fact that The Road by Mr. McCarthy is on that couch. Once, I was all stretched out on that couch reading and I smelled something really stinky. My husband was cooking dinner and I thought, wow, that chicken might have gone bad. I kept trying to read. But I couldn’t really concentrate because of the smell. Hmm, I thought. I should get up and tell him not to cook that chicken, cause it’s really gone bad. I continued to try to read for about thirty minutes. Then I looked to the side of me. And you know what I saw? A dead, rotting squirrel. Right next to me, all stretched out and dead, on my couch. I screamed and ran. Here’s the deal: my beloved husband cut a hole in the ceiling in another room to see what was above it (I am not going to explain that now) and he never covered the hole up. So we had problems with animals in our house for awhile. Once I went to pee and there was a dead squirrel in the toilet. And the bats! The BATS! I since have duct taped over the hole. ( I know, I know, you really want to come over and see my beautiful house.) I said to him, “that is why we had problems with bats.” And you know what he says? To this day, “I don’t think so.”
That, readers of htmlgiant, is my office. Mock me. I’m trying to get tougher.
Tags: pr, The Mother's Guide to Sex
I find bats and all the other rodents/animals you mentioned here totally scary. I was in my backyard playing with my son today, and we saw a squirrel run across the back fence and clutched each other tightly.
I find bats and all the other rodents/animals you mentioned here totally scary. I was in my backyard playing with my son today, and we saw a squirrel run across the back fence and clutched each other tightly.
i was divebombed by a bat in my dad’s house when he lived in upstate new york. i don’t remember it, but every time i see my younger sisters they tell the story of me cooking kraft mac and cheese and then dropping to the floor when the bat swooped at me. apparently i continued to commando crawl around the house for a few minutes.
i got distracted there…
great post. i like seeing people’s work spaces… maybe ’cause i don’t have one and i’m jealous… the genius of this piece is how all the great elements are woven together, from husband-wife stories to masturbation, animal encounters to reading adventures. it has it all!
i was divebombed by a bat in my dad’s house when he lived in upstate new york. i don’t remember it, but every time i see my younger sisters they tell the story of me cooking kraft mac and cheese and then dropping to the floor when the bat swooped at me. apparently i continued to commando crawl around the house for a few minutes.
i got distracted there…
great post. i like seeing people’s work spaces… maybe ’cause i don’t have one and i’m jealous… the genius of this piece is how all the great elements are woven together, from husband-wife stories to masturbation, animal encounters to reading adventures. it has it all!
Don’t be jealous. Look at my life. I roll around in a pile of crap. Bats. So many bats. We had this thing where I had a tennis raquet and a butterfly net and I would run around trying to catch them. Cause I got buddies who had to do the whole rabies shots thing cause of bats.
Good stuff, here. The dead squirrel really solidified this for me. When I was 8 or 9 I tried to move a dead squirrel off the sidewalk because my friends were spitting on it and poking it with sticks. I got a small stick and pushed it into the grass. It lunged and scratched my hand. I was out of town at the time, visiting old friends. The kid I was staying with told me I was fine. His parents laughed when I asked if I should get a rabies shot. I spent the rest of the trip convinced I had rabies (picture the Seinfeld with Elaine foaming at the mouth, only not as funny).
Good stuff, here. The dead squirrel really solidified this for me. When I was 8 or 9 I tried to move a dead squirrel off the sidewalk because my friends were spitting on it and poking it with sticks. I got a small stick and pushed it into the grass. It lunged and scratched my hand. I was out of town at the time, visiting old friends. The kid I was staying with told me I was fine. His parents laughed when I asked if I should get a rabies shot. I spent the rest of the trip convinced I had rabies (picture the Seinfeld with Elaine foaming at the mouth, only not as funny).
Well, yes. But why did it take me almost an hour to realize I was next to a dead squirrel that stunk so bad I couldn’t read? That is because I am gross and retarded. So think about that people,
Oh, I did think about that aspect too (not the gross/retarded phrasing per se).
Oh, I did think about that aspect too (not the gross/retarded phrasing per se).
i think i see my book on your bed. i am far too excited about this.
i think i see my book on your bed. i am far too excited about this.
Yes! Jackie- it is very possible your book is on my bed! You rule.
this post makes me very happy for lots of different reasons.
kyle minor’s collection is a perfect book to have on time of the pile. i read it twice through when i got it and it still sits on top of the pile so i can flip through it and read a story or two when i can. he’s reading here in ann arbor this weds. it should be a good time.
and pr? thinking about tom brady? i didnt know he played tennis.
this post makes me very happy.
this post makes me very happy for lots of different reasons.
kyle minor’s collection is a perfect book to have on time of the pile. i read it twice through when i got it and it still sits on top of the pile so i can flip through it and read a story or two when i can. he’s reading here in ann arbor this weds. it should be a good time.
and pr? thinking about tom brady? i didnt know he played tennis.
this post makes me very happy.
pr,
the workspace depicted looks that of a very intelligent (but messy) person.
look at all those books! books books books.
i see a trait in your workspace that is not present in the finely manicured workspaces of mfa students: confidence.
pr,
the workspace depicted looks that of a very intelligent (but messy) person.
look at all those books! books books books.
i see a trait in your workspace that is not present in the finely manicured workspaces of mfa students: confidence.
Barry- I am happy I made you happy. I love you. That Kyle Minor collection feels like a gift to the world. Have fun at the reading if you go. Tom Brady, um, yeah, he doesn”t play tennis. But I forgive him. I also really like hockey players. And tennis players. Not baseball or basektball players, for some reason. But the other three sports keeps me very busy, um, mentally.
Jereme, I’m actually not very confident. I’m 40 though and that is why I have so much crap. Imagine that office when I am 60! Wow. Time for a new contest so I can give away stuff and make my life cleaner for one moment before I get more books to replace the old ones. I’ll think of one for next week, when I get to go back there.
Did you write about this in a short story of yours? It sounds familiar to me.
pr,
shush! i know you think you lack confidence. i was giving you a compliment and pissing on the self-important intellects.
you ruined it though. geez!
you should hand books out at the local high school. get some literature into the hands of babes.
pr,
shush! i know you think you lack confidence. i was giving you a compliment and pissing on the self-important intellects.
you ruined it though. geez!
you should hand books out at the local high school. get some literature into the hands of babes.
I didn’t mean to ruin it, Jereme. Sorry. I love you. The two contests I did I sent out TONS of books. It felt great. Or three times? Yes, three times. Ryan, Larry and Mr. Butler (his haiku on the hairy boobed lady was fantastic.)
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