I'm what you might call a wallpaper junkie.
I change the background image on my desktop at least once a week. The home screen on my iPhone gets a make over more often than one of them Orange County housewives.
I tend to go for abstract patterns. Stuff that won't distract from the fine decor on my desk. You know, the piles of flowcharts, manilla folders and empty Wild Turkey bottles.
Most photographs are avoided, because they tend to render the workspace unfunctional. Files and folders are hard to find when they are lost in the canals of Venice, or in the leaves of some photoshopped tree.
There are exceptions, however. Today, I had just reloaded an old favorite when this girl asked me what the picture was.
"That's where I went to school," I say, happy to share my wallpaper hobby.
"England?" she asks.
"Kansas, actually. It's the University of Kansas."
She squints a little bit.
"I didn't know Kansas looked like England."
"I guess I didn't, either."
"It's very pretty, though," she says, while a flush of school pride runs through me.
The photo is an arial shot of the KU campus. The view is looking south, and if I squint hard enough in my mind, I can see the apartment I used to live in off in the distance.
"You can see actually see the crappy parking spot I got whenever I was running late," I point out.
"Oh, were you a bad student?" she asks.
That wasn't really the point I was trying to make.
"No. Well... no."
"Why is it so cloudy?"
Personally, I love this photo because it wasn't taken on some picture-perfect sunny day. The sky is overcast and grey.
"That's a typical Kansas sky," I tell her.
"Must have been depressing."
"It wasn't always cloudy."
"They couldn't wait another day to take the picture, then?" she asks.
"It's actually one of my favorite things," I say. "The clouds mute the colors and sort of bring out the stony-ness of the buildings, you know."
"I don't think 'stony-ness' is a word."
"You know what I mean."
"Must not have been a very good school," she scoffs.
"What if I told you it actually was England?" I ask.
She squints at the picture again.
"Well, I'd like it better, but it still wouldn't make 'stony-ness' a word."
She leaves and I am again left with my thoughts and a photograph of my alma mater. I stare at it for a few moments, until I no longer care what any words mean.
That is why I love this picture. It brings me calm. Reminds me of a time of great promise in my life. I was lucky to go to a school with a traditional campus feel. Large swaths of grass, old buildings and very little industry.
This picture is not a cubicle. It's not a ridiculous deadline, or endless email exchanges about nothing.
It's a little piece of home I can call up when I really need it.
It's stony. And, I like it.
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You can get it here.
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