a long time ago
in a city called Boston,
i worked in an office.
yep, i reported to grownups.
granted, i could vote and drink beer legally,
i just was not all that mature.
this is not to say that i am very mature today... since my current goal is to play as much as possible
and if it is a perfect day, it will be in my jammies.
however, before i digress too fully i will try to explain.
i was going to architecture school by night in Boston.
by day, i dressed up as closely to what i thought a professional might look like.
this was a little easier than one might think,
since mostly black clothes were the uniform of
any designers' choice.
luckily for me, i was in an office that had amongst its good points,
proximity to the main
Filene's Basement store.
I could wear things then that looked very nice on girls with waistlines.
and there was a lot of options in pretty then.
my favorite find was a yellow and orange damask cotton pattern
interpreted in a short sleeved top and long pleated skirt set
both from Calvin Klein.
the pair were sold to me giggling with glee for
$38.oo apiece.
i also had a silk chartreuse blouse
that i wore with a robin's egg blue, Ann Taylor, linen pencil skirt.
that was another outfit for about $70.
i was also known as the girl in the office that wore pink.
for the black clothed, it was ever so scandalous!
when you came for an interview
(and if you were female),
& if you wore lipstick
automatically you were not hired.
(by now if you are wondering if there is a point to this, i am getting there).
there were 3 partners in this largish office.
one was a long tall gracious quiet fellow named John.
i think he was just hiding in his office.
he spent a lot of time smoking in there.
we always thought he was too elegant for the rest of us and was just waiting to retire.
if nothing else he was removed from us as much as he could be.
i think he was the money man.
another is cause for many curses still to this day.
she was a well enough respected woman in the days when women were not really architects.
she was horrible.
and amongst all the other members of the staff,
she was called the 'BLACK WIDOW'.
she had married one of the founding partners of this office.
we all speculated that she married him and then killed him.
did i mention that she was a misery of human kind?
think martha stewart, barking out orders, thinking she had talent,
but not having it.
she was a queen shrew.
not that i bear any hostility or anything.
she really hated me. and was not at all subtle about it.
she was surprised after i left her office, that i still practiced architectural design.
after all, if you left her office, you must have died
or met with some evil outcome.
remember, she was the 'BLACK WIDOW'.
she mocked me in public,
EVEN though
i did not work for her any more...
and she could not take any credit any more for any of my work.
Luckily no one other than me and my friend Kathy noticed.
(i was working with Kathy by then. she was another female architect
without any of the crap that the old witch dished out.)
all three of us (kathy, me and the black widow)
were at the grand opening of a Women's Shelter.
Kathy had been invited as she was the architect for the project and
had both designed and overseen its construction.
it was an award winning project for both the city and amongst local architects.
It was a phenomenal building from an existing building shell in the South end of Boston.
{this was kathy.
she rocked all that was good about women in our profession,
she was generous and gracious beyond the pale.
she was the antidote to the kind of woman i had worked for previously}.
anyways,
the third partner in the firm i started discussing...
was a guy named bob.
bob rode the subway and then the bus to his home.
he was sensible about being 'green' way, way, way ahead of the curve.
he wore basic clothes. ones that he could be comfy at work wearing.
he was the antidote to the fussy queen and the j.pressed partner in his office.
bob had some people skills.
as many as one could hope for from a "guy from MIT".
in boston there were 3 architecture schools.
one was Harvard, where you learned how to design a better box.
the second was MIT. this was where you learned how to build anything.
it was jokingly referred to as the graduate school for carpenters.
i attended the Boston Architectural Center.
it was where you learned how to describe all things to be actually made,
then draw them and build them.
it was more of a blue collar kind of place.
we of the BAC worked to be able to communicate our ideas.
often though it was to the other two populations :
designers and craftsmen.
(Harvard and MIT grads).
this is not to say that our BAC population wasn't peppered with fantastic carpenters,
electricians, plumbers and designers as well.
it was an undergraduate program unlike the
Harvard and MIT programs.
this made our experience in the work arena a little lower
on the assignment ladder.
we were undergraduates with skills, not masters candidates.
pecking orders being what they were.
(and now back to something along the path to getting to my point...
fool that i am, and how i go on so...)
Bob did all the nuts and boltsy things.
what i remember him most for was his dry sense of humor.
he also added a vital phrase to my world.
it has been used many times since.
i feel obligated to admire him for both his respect for this
as well as letting go of the guilt related to taming it.
the phrase is:
"ALLUVIAL FILING".
it is all about not putting things away
and
piling them into discreet layered groups.
i understand that system.
it is something that has overtaken my life.
i have magnificent piles all over my house.
they hold specific groups of things in each.
sometimes
there are satellite elements nearby.
sometimes
there are collections that are similar,
yet amassed on the other side of the house.
sometimes
there are piles of things that are completely unrelated
and for these dissimilar elements, they are bonded together.
all in all, if there is a potential to group some stuff, i will likely take it.
so messy to others,
so hard for them to take in,
so hard for my husband to ignore
(he has a similar system in play, but is incited by mine.
there are tangoing piles everywhere...
i think that his piles and mine play footsies when we are not looking.
he seems to be unable to ignore my pilery when his is less orderly...harumph. )
anyways, it is time for me to shower.
drink some tea.
and start to dig into the
MESS.
i mean ALLUVIAL FILINGS.
please wish me luck and hope that i survive myself.
xoxo.w
and now to share how bad the alluvial piles are...
i think if you lasted this long, you deserve some context.
MESSIEST of the mess.
trash pail is in the middle.
ugh.
secondo messiest... the table top
more and yet more...
so embarrassing.
if i work hard though,
i shall be able to finish filling up the shoe boxes inside of these two cabinets.
moving forward to horizontal spread.
not just vertical
Right Cabinet
Left Cabinet
Magazines,
paper supplies and other goodies
on painted red shelves
Plenty of storage areas, just time is lacking
to keep on sorting and storing my fun stuff.
now i am bidding you adieu.
i have some labels to make.
it will help me move forward a little with this overwhelming project.
the one where i hope that all that is
alluvial will go sideways.
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