Things. Boxes. Dog beds. Organizing.

SUMMARY: I despair of ever having the time or energy.

Oct 2005: This is what the entry to my office used to be.  Clean, simple, no boxes (well, just one temporary clear plastic one) in the aisle (and Jake). Made me look almost like a neat, tidy, organized person. Plus room to stroll through. I'd love to get back to that.  NOTE that the side of the kitchen table where I always sit is above the big bed. That's relevant here. Some differences that can't be helped: No Jake. The starry doormat seen at the bottom no longer exists. The purple wastebasket broke (sob!). The boxes on the bookcase are long gone. (Carpet color didn't change; differences in cameras or processing.)

Oct 2019: Main differences: The dogs almost never used the smaller bed there: Either used the big bed or lay under the table. So I moved that bed under the table.  (The big bed is still there, with that burgundy/black cushion on it.) Therefore the wastebaskets moved farther to the right (can't see them). The filigree metal screen (you can just see its edge on the right in 2005) (it's about 5'x5') moved to the left side because it blocked me from accessing the wires for equipment on the desk. Boxes boxes boxes. On *both* sides (you can't see the right side much). Almost all of them have been there 3-4 years (much related to my parents' estate, but not all). Makes me nuts every time I walk through there. But then, I'd have to look at each one and either make a decision of some sort (hard) or do with it what I had intended (often time-consuming).  Exercise pen unfolded in front of some boxes. Actually it's there so that I can sometimes move it to block their access, either into or out of the office. Too much stuff on lowest shelf of closest bookcase. (Bringing over all my parents' slides & photos is a storage challenge.)

Levy's Law of Level Surfaces

SUMMARY: Mystifies even the most advanced quantum physicists

My dad (maybe started with my grandparents?) defined the Levy Law of Level Surfaces.

My sister stated it in 2018 as: "Any level surface will immediately be covered past capacity."

I remember it as being multipart, something like:

1. Any clear level surface will attract items within 10 microseconds to the point where it is no longer clear.
2. If someone is attempting to clear a level surface and there is more than one person involved, the additional people will add things to the level surface in proportion to the clearing of the level surface so that the surface is never completely clear.
3. There are no clear level surfaces.

(Sad that Dad isn't around to remind me any more of his wordings. We'll need to refine this description.)

From a Dad email in Oct 2014 to an adult granddaughter:

"You haven't developed symptoms of 'Levy's Law of Level Surfaces'.  One symptom of it was when I was moving a piece of furniture from one place to another, I had put it down because something else had higher priority. When I returned there were two  small piles of papers on the top level surface. I had to the move them before completing the move. "

And it's a famous Law! (At least, in a certain circle of cognoscenti.) November, 2018, on Facebook in a chat mostly of family members, a friend of my sisters (Thomas DaEarl Taylor (Earl Thomas the Incomplete in the SCA)) said:

"I still quote the 'Levy Law of Level Surfaces' to my friends. Oh, and [I] give your dad citation credit."

In the meantime, I can guarantee that there are no level surfaces in my house that don't have things on them, no matter how often I clear them off.  My brother-in-law was just describing a couple of weeks ago that, after he completely clears the kitchen counters, things (e.g., salt & pepper shakers...) appear there as soon as he turns his back.

Recently I completely cleared off a small computer table and the shelves beneath it to get it out of the house. But my hips were too sore at the time to move it, and so it sat there. Now, instead of holding a neat assortment of things that belonged there (including a printer), it holds random piles of things (not including anything even vaguely computer related) that need to go somewhere else but somehow were attracted to the empty surfaces. Amazing how well the law works.

More research is needed.