My desk is unnaturally neat and organized this morning. Each category, each project, has its neatly labeled folder. The calendar is open to the month of June with all tasks written in their appointed days. The spiral notebook in which I record the ongoing tasks--incoming calls, requests, notifications and so forth--is turned to a clean page with today's day and date written at the top.

The pens are all lined up next to the mouse pad. The monitor is set just so, at a slight angle, easy to read and avoiding the glare of the window behind me.

It's all a fake, a facade. Things have been stuffed into folders in the hopes I can deal with them soon and meantime will they please stop cluttering my desk and begging for attention. The inventory demands that I pay attention to it, its cries muffled by the big green hanging folder into which I have hidden it. The new notebook page sneers at the multitude of post-its which have been covered with hastily written phone messages supposedly for itself.

And I can't get the phone to be quiet nor the employee requests and visits to cease long enough to do more than to attend to the most vital of tasks (like payroll). The inventory will have to wait, and the bits of paper with their notes will languish, waiting for entry into the notebook, whenever.

Another day in paradise.