This weekend, I had two dreams about cleaning out my school/campus office. This comes right after I did in fact clean out my most recent campus office. Was it a bittersweet moment leaving it behind? Actually, no; it was just another step towards retirement.
Although the actual process of cleaning out my office took several months, recycling and throwing away things, the move-out itself was fairly quick, and I did bring a few items home. In the end it all fit nicely into the back of an SUV. This was not reflected in my dreams, however; apparently my mind took me back to the University of Charleston when I had two offices. Well, three actually.
When I first started there, I was only an adjunct, and was granted a room to use as an office and some theater storage. Later, I wrangled another office, but continued to use the first as storage. I used these spaces until one day when a maintenance worker showed up and told me I needed to move. Apparently that space was part of a larger maintenance project; it would’ve been nice to get some administrative heads up on that. But that’s typical in a university setting. (Watch for breadcrumbs like that in these blog posts to understand why I chose to retire sooner rather than later.)
When I went full-time there, I was given an office on the second floor, down faculty row. Eventually I moved all the stuff out of my first office, and into costume and prop storage.
My Pitt-Greensburg office was much more “contained.” Much got recycled (did I really need the prompt scripts from every show I directed? No, just 4:48 Psychosis and Dog Assassin) and I brought my acting and directing texts home. I still harbor a desire to write that directing text, and I think a “how I directed 4:48 Psychosis” would be an amazing piece.
I also spent time going through a box that had all the materials for that wonderful book on virtual reality and Artaud that I was going to write in the beginning of the 21st-century. I threw away lots of articles from the 90s that just don’t seem relevant anymore. But I still harbor desires to do virtual reality projects…
In the meantime things have been pared down quite a bit; this started out as five boxes earlier.
More to be done!
MUSOFYR 