Office

I like the office early in the morning, or on weekends. Its like an abandoned spaceship with flat blue-grey carpeting, thin white walls and shredders that eat paper and CDs.

Behind me there's a faded, water-smudged painting, dedicated "to Sumwun, love Nora". Nora is my ex-boss's daughter. She was around 5 when she drew that. Precocious kid. She could never figure out my name.

For a long time, I had a card on my computer from my sister which said "Happy Birthday Monkey's Uncle"! (she calls her son Monkey. He calls me Munkle. Christ we're weird.).

In my drawer I have a stash of instant Cappucino and Weiner Melange. I'm a coffee nerd. as in, sometimes, I read about coffee on wikipedia. So I know that a Latte Machiato is a lot of milk "marked" with a dash of coffee. I know an Espresso Machiato is an Espresso "marked" with a bit of milk. I know that a Ristretto is not necessarily twice as strong as an Espresso. I like to watch coffee powder pour out of a sachet into my green mug with the Chinese squiggles. I even own a (single shot) Moka, inherited from an Italian flatmate. She wrote out how to use it on blue exercise paper ("instructions for dummies"), and stuck it on the back of the stove the night before she left.

There's a map on the wall. I like maps. I like knowing where places are. I wish there was a giant world map in our apartment. I would point out Turkey to visiting friends and we'd talk about how it faces Central Asia and the Middle East and Europe. Sometimes I wish Istanbul was the biggest city in the world so I could work there but still explore another country every month or so.

I listen to music on YouTube as I work. I have the most extensive YouTube playlists in existence. I have "Upper" lists and "Downer" lists, one called "No Pigeonhole" (much of this is Cat Empire, the closest songs have come to poetry for me after the Counting Crows). Sometimes I type to ryhthm. Nodding, eyes focused, feeling like a train carrying a bongo drum going over a bridge...