Alpha: Would you please clean off your nightstand so I can dust?
Miguel: [Notices a Japanese retractable pruning saw on his cluttered nightstand, picks up journal, starts making list] I have to write all this down.
Alpha: What are you doing? I’d like to dust.
Miguel: Reading lamp with frosted glass shade, broken in pillow fight. Travel alarm clock, purple, set to 6.00 AM, turned off for holidays. Sexy new silver Siemens cellphone. Scrap of paper with note to self about next parents’ association meeting at music school. Box of matches. Japanese retractable pruning saw.
Alpha: You’re blogging, aren’t you?
Miguel: What are you talking about? Don’t be absurd. I’m making a list for posterity’s sake. I mean, pruning saw on my nightstand, man.
Lava lamp. Various books, including Neil Gaiman American Gods (read), urban legend book I gave Beta for Christmas because I wanted to read it (almost finished), Sun Tzu The Art of War, Old journal, rediscovered, old address book containing what are either uncashed paychecks from Japan or (hopefully) receipts for the same, film script by D., UN document on corruption, Bill Bryson book (read), Al-Ghazali’s Path to Sufism, The Mystic Heart by Wayne Teasdale (somehow hard to read), another old journal, dream journal, more notes and cards, old Xmas card, auto club info, torn up because I mistook it for junk mail, receipts and pens, box for cell phone, full of unread info and instructions.
Alpha: Move so I can make the bed.