My mother said after my cat-confessional column last week that now I have no secrets.
Au contraire.
I have confessed in this column to many things — cussing occasionally, not cooking a lick, being a shopaholic and, the worst, my husband says, owning a Michael Bolton CD.
I’ve shared some of my family secrets, too, much to their chagrin. My brother has forgiven me for talking about his back hair (which he no longer has, thanks to the miracle of lasers).
Still, I don’t know that I’ve shared the extent of my disorganization problem. It has begun to really get on my nerves after all these years, and I am determined to turn this around before I die.
I really think people are born one way or the other — organized or messy — just like they’re either right- or left-handed. It’s hard for clean-desk people to comprehend us can’t-see-the-top-of-the-desk people. Newspaper reporters and editors are famous for paper-covered desks, stacks teetering on the edges. We’ve seen those cute little signs, “A messy desk is the sign of a creative mind.”
We often work on half a dozen stories at a time, and we have press releases, reporter’s notebooks, file folders, documents, business cards and Post-it notes everywhere. Not to mention coffee mugs (I count six on my desk at this moment, including one that says, “Everyone annoys me. That’s all.”) and an odd assemblage of mementos, thank-you notes, cartoons, magnets, photographs and random items that express our personalities. You might have noticed — most reporters are not shy.
It has gotten to the point, however, that I’m embarrassed if someone comes in the office to see me. Not only is the top of my desk covered — and I’m not talking neat stacks — it has spilled over to the floor. Perusing the floor, I see my 2013 Daytimer pages with all the notes and phone numbers scribbled I wrote each day, old newspapers that I kept for some reason that I’ve forgotten, a rack of file folders in my attempt to get organized, a box of old reporter’s notebooks, which I occasionally dig through to find information that’s helpful, an old computer keyboard, a heater that I use daily, two plastic forks, and a box in the corner that I’m afraid to open because something might crawl out.
There. Do you think less of me now? The thing is, my house is not like this. I’m not going to give tours of my closet, but my husband and I keep our home fairly clean and neat. It’s like I have two personalities.
For Christmas last year, I asked my family for money to hire a professional organizer to help me get a handle on my desk at work. I’d seen an advertisement for the woman’s business in a magazine; then I lost the magazine.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled across her name online, so I emailed her. I wrote what I thought was a humorous plea for her help.
I haven’t gotten a reply.
She probably knows a lost cause when she hears one. I guess I’ll just wait until I get buried alive, and the firefighters can dig me out.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.