It seems like appropriate timing: my soon-to-be-former workplace is in the middle of remodeling the main storefront space. It's one of those hurry-up-and-spend-rather-than-pay-taxes projects. If you can claim a lot of business expenses your taxes are lower, so every year the bosses look around for things to spend money on if they think they'll end the year with too much profit. When I started out in August of 1997 the storefront was a few months old, just a baby, really. The carpet was new, the counter wasn't scratched up yet, the paint was fresh, we had plenty of space to work in and very nice work stations with pull out keyboards. Back then that seemed really cool.

Gradually the carpet got snagged and stained, the counter scratched, we put a wall in and moved a large desk into the sales area, rental computers around the perimeter, and it began to feel crowded and cluttered.

So finally the space is being redesigned to bring back a feeling of openness and create order. Old things are being thrown out or given away. I remember the fake lava lamps that C. N. ordered one year and was so proud of. And who can forget the lite brite set and the lightening disk? All going away...

And as I uproot my work life and drag bits of it home, it certainly does seem to echo the disarray of this stage of the remodel process. I have piles of stuff I brought home that had gradually accumulated at work. Excess office supplies that I myself bought for projects and only used part of, pictures, a candy dish, posters, art, my altar components, wheat weavings and a decorative plate, a heater...I am being buried in stuff that I will have to organize in January. My office was my second home and often I spent more waking hours there than at home, such as during the billing system changeovers (both of them).

So as I get ready to leave it feels like much of the history of the space is leaving too--both mine and my company's. It feels appropriate somehow. A new start for my company, a new start for me. May each of us prosper.