Rearranging the Home Office

It was too rainy to go to the cafe to do work (no nearby parking), so I had to clean up my home office if I wanted to get anything done. Mostly this involved throwing away the non-essential and putting the rest of the papers into a file folder labeled "assorted crap - summer 2004." However, I also had to clear some space on the bookshelf for my home copies of my textbooks, so I had to move the piano music into a closet.



I had always just assumed that one day I was going to live somewhere large enough to have a Steinway Model L (or a Model M or a Model S — I'm not fussy). Five or six feet isn't that big, I reasoned.

Back when I was in grad school I owned the most amazing 1950s-era Baldwin Acrosonic spinet piano. It had the most beautiful tone; it sounded much nicer than the fancy new Yamaha upright that my parents had bought me when I was in middle school. During my last year of grad school (when I was going to finish "any week now") I didn't take a summer job and I quit my TA-ship so that I could focus on finishing. I didn't have a roommate while living in an expensive part of the country; I didn't have a job; I was planning a long-distance move once I graduated. I had to sell the piano.

I'm sure that my downstairs neighbors celebrated.

But now I have my own house, and it doesn't seem likely that I'll be getting a piano. I live in a small bungalow-style house, and I'd have to completely redo my livingroom-diningroom area just to find a space for a small upright piano. And pianos are very heavy, and my floor supports might not be up to the job. I'm told that the high end electronic pianos are much better than they used to be; I'm skeptical.

The stack of piano books is small (especially compared to the other random things in the closet), so I'll let them be for now.