It's a still from the great Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder. On the left is the equally sexy and flinty Barbara Stanwyck and on the right, of course, is Fred MacMurray who was a hard-boiled low-life long before he was the father who knew best. It's from a scene that's been copied and parodied many times. The two of them are plotting to kill Stanwyck's husband and collect the insurance money but to avoid the possibility of detection, they stay away from each other at all costs so they won't be linked. To communicate, they meet in a store and pretend like they're both shopping while they whisper to each other. It's a terrific movie -- well worth seeing.
Anyway, that image is on my desktop for this week. Last week it was a photo of Idaho grain fields. Before that it was a panel from a Hellboy comic book and before that it was a turn of the century woodcut of a beehive. (That's right, a skep!)I change the image regularly because I'm a visual guy and I like to look at something new and interesting fairly often. But it's also a way of staking my territory -- this computer is mine. I do the same with the walls in whatever office or classroom I'm given. Right now on the east wall of my classroom/office there are reproduction vintage travel posters that I cut out of a calendar. If I taught somewhere other than here, I'd also have my Superman-breaking-chains statue nearby. It's just my way of making a place mine.
Whenever Suzanne and I have moved into a new place, she's not been comfortable until there was a place for everything. The storage had to be stored, the decorations placed, the pictures hung. It's how she establishes herself in a new place.
So what do you do? How do you assert yourself? Do you put book plate cards in the front of all your books? Do you hang one precious picture on the wall when you want to establish you're there for a while? Do you insist on fresh fruit on your desk at work? What is on your computer desktop? Do you have a special ringtone on your phone that you picked out? What do you do to make a place or thing your own?
2 comments:
I have pictures that the girls colored for me and some photos of them in my cube at work and although sometimes I wonder if my decor is a bit "bright" for the dreary expanse of gray cubes, I have to remind myself that I'm a Mom first and foremost and just keepin' it real. The other thing that's been an office staple since way back when is my collection of artist mugs...even though I don't drink coffee they are pretty to look at and store my stuff in.
Whenever I'm in a car I have to set the presets on the radio, even if I'm in a rental. I might only have the car for one day, but the stations have to be picked by me. Pretty dumb I know.
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