A Not-Ready-for-HGTV Office

A reader asked me to describe my office.

I don’t think she expected to hear what I’m going to say, but who knows?

Here goes: My office looks like the inside of a piñata, complete with candy. It’s located in the basement of a 1960s building, standard-issue red brick and flat roofed, with lots of perpetually grimy plate glass windows wrapped around its four floors. My office is pretty big, and sits right next to the vending machines. It’s pretty close to the ladies’ room. (Karen says “It’s situated like the worst table in a restaurant.”) 

There are three desks, with three working computers (or four if you count Karen’s laptop). There’s an old Mac on the floor; I’m afraid to give it or throw it away because I wrote three books on it and I fear that tossing it would bring me bad luck. It squats on the floor beneath one of the bookcases, doing no one any harm. The computers (except for Karen’s) are all Macs, some of which are old enough to appear on Antiques Roadshow. There are also two printers, but only one works.

Along one long green cinderblock wall, I’ve festooned a queen-sized quilt made from two-inch squares of bright 1950s materials. Along the other walls, you’ll see the first piece of framed art I ever bought, right after I completed my first year of graduate school at CUNY. It’s a picture of a clock. Far more strikingly, on the other walls are two amazing oil paintings by a former student illustrating scenes from Fay Weldon’s novels (one painting was a gift, one I bought), two etchings from friends in the U.K., a poster from the second season of The Sopranos, a note from Dave Barry saying “For Gina’s Creative Writing Class – I LOVE YOU ALL! Gina made me write this,” a photo-shopped picture of my husband as Harrison Ford from the Indiana Jones movies, a magazine picture of Ian McShane in a black leather jacket, 43 framed photographs of friends and/or former students, and an album cover from Three Penny Opera with Raul Julia on its cover.

Along the other side of the room, maybe 200 books line the shelves.

There are eight lamps, not counting the string of Japanese lanterns, and there are four overhead fluorescent fixtures that I hate. I have three area rugs (T.J. Maxx), seven chairs (three from the department, three from the thrift shop, and a rocking chair from Dartmouth after I gave the keynote speech at my reunion), two full-length mirrors, a microwave, a toaster oven, a refrigerator, an electric kettle, one coffee-press machine, and a stack of sixteen microwavable macaroni and cheese lunches. I have a small space in the back of the filing cabinet behind my desk where I keep make-up, barrettes, Q-tips, Blistex, toothpicks, and hairbrushes.

On the floor are six unopened cartons of my own remaindered titles (various). From the ceiling hangs one set of wind chimes (including a rogue spider-man figure hanging on for dear life). On the windows, desks, and shelves, you’ll find 15 fake plants in addition to one live cactus plant which I’ve somehow managed not to kill, three calendars, pictures of my colleagues and myself from the New Hall Cambridge Middle Common Room (circa 1981), a glow-in-the-dark flesh-eating zombie play set still in its original packaging, a stuffed mastodon (not life sized), bumper stickers or magnets that say the following: “Jesus loves you but I’m his favorite,” “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force,” “I love children: Especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away.” “Etre aimé n’est rien, c’est etre préféré que je desire.” -André Gide “Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.” -Flannery O’Connor “I make the most of all that comes, the least of all that goes.” -Sarah Teasdale “Your levity is good. It reduces tension and the fear of death.” -Terminator III; in addition to these, I have a Post-it saying “Deviance can be found in room 108,” a phrase I copied from a handwritten sign plastered on a classroom door two semesters ago. Another Post-it reminds me that, as a former student said,: “Everyone is a feminist until you need something moved.”

A copy of Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” is framed, and sits on a shelf next to a picture of one of my cats. Draped over one chair is a bath towel with the first paragraph of Pride and Prejudice printed on it. On the desk where I work most often, there’s miniature minotaur, a clock from the Yale Campaign School for Women, a Cary-Yale Visconti Tarot Deck, a set of small brass monkeys, my name pass to the 2004 Miami Book Fair, large red feather boa, probably 35 Snow White or Snow White related objects (because of the title of my first book), pens with both blue and black ink, and 1,458 pencils, none of which are sharpened.   

Well, you asked.