Eternal clutter of a diseased mind

I never did write a summary of the weblog conference. In part that’s because it was such a blast on so many levels, and such a frenetic burst of activity, that I am simply overwhelmed at the thought of trying to wrap it all up. Furthermore, this was by far the most intensely blogged event I have ever experienced, and I can’t think of much to add in terms of reporting it… I may have some reflections on the conference over the next few weeks (I see Roland is beginning to post some of his own), so I may yet subject people to my memories and triumphant rantings.

The really big news: I cleaned my desk. Judging by some of the papers I excavated toward the end of the process, this must have been the first time I’ve done so since I moved here. I have an extremely high threshold of tolerance for chaos, and I could have happily co-existed with the piles of clutter indefinitely, but I took an impartial look at my space yesterday and realized that it gave every impression of being the haunt of someone who is clearly unwell. On this basis alone, I could have been hospitalised for my own safety. Shocked into action, I immediately donned the protective gloves and fearlessly attacked the wreckage.

A few hours of hard labour later, the workspace is undoubtedly more pleasing to the eye. I am able to set my coffee cup down on endless stretches of flat stable surface area. But I can’t help but feel let down. I had hoped to unearth some treasures — uncashed cheques, rare manuscripts, maybe the lost Monet. But all I uncovered fighting the entropy was a lot of old conference swag (no more notebooks please), white papers optimistically printed out and subsequently unread, scraps of paper with phone numbers and cryptic phrases like “server side aggregator” devoid of all context, and a lot of library overdue notices (I’m squared up with them now).

My camera batteries are dead, so I can’t subject you to before and after photos. Lucky for everyone.