September 15, 2017 - News Post

I have a messy desk.

It’s only been a few days since I last cleaned, but the clutter has built up beyond my monitors and into eye level. The usual stuff is all there, layered and compacted into a fortress of papers. To the untrained eye, it may look like any other mess. But this is the rare and elusive “marathon mess.”

Loading the desk with papers, pens, books, toys, and hardware is not shocking for me. I’m not a filthy person, but my desk is no stranger to clutter. When I’m staring at my monitors, it’s easy to forget my surroundings and just put things wherever I can reach. Marathon messes are different. Marathon messes are a force of nature.

Once or twice a year, I get so absorbed in a project that I avoid sleep for an extended period of time. When this happens, I neglect my surroundings and leave messes everywhere I go. All week, I’ve been working. I’ve been catching up on the day job, building apps, and (gasp) prepping some comic stuff. To make things worse, my wife has been sick and leaving messes of her own.

In order to avoid the appearance of living in a dumpster, we’ve kept the living room, bedroom, and other “common areas” clean. All that junk has to go somewhere, though, and that somewhere is on my desk.

What sets marathon messes apart from ordinary jumbles is the height and randomness of the stack. Like a drunken game of Jenga, I’ve been piling tax forms on top of dirty clothes on top of hard drives and so on. The desk is unstable and on wheels. Sooner or later, this pile will collapse. The fall of the tower of junk will be expensive and loud, and I hope I’m not home to see it.

Oh sure, I could take a few moments to clean, solving the problem now before it’s too late. I could prevent all my precious junk from falling to its doom, but I have too much to do. I’m still working on the computer, writing this very news.

Most people would take a moment to clean before continuing the news. I am not most people. I have great and wonderful readers who give me the strength to go on. Thank you for that. Knowing you’re out there means the world to me. No matter what the risk, I will continue typing. Why, the only thing that can stop me now is some sort of major junk avalan

-Jeff