Midmorning progress:

The top shelf and desk-surface of the computer desk have been cleared. I'm working my way around the office counterclockwise, as I've started dealing with the junk on the top of the file cabinets.

I have a box, about 2 feet by 2 feet by 18 inches deep FILLED with paper to be shredded and recycled.

It's interesting in a humbling sort of way to realize how many of the things you thought were urgently important and need to be saved, cease to be so six months (or more) after the fact.

The worst pangs come from pitching the various drafts-in-progress of papers. But I'm steeling myself and telling myself that:

(a) most of the papers have either been published already, or at least been accepted (and I am realistic/humble enough to know that none of my "in progress" stuff, none of my marginal notes, none of the stuff I scribble, will be of interest to anyone after I'm gone. That may have been true of Einstein and the Curies and even John T. Curtis, but I'm nowhere near their leagues.)

or

(b) I've made all the changes that would make sense on the "electronic" copy in my computer's memory.

I have to learn to be less compulsive about retaining papers that I have stored on the hard drive. I think the hard-drive failure I had 5 years ago got me fearful of throwing away any paper. But now, my important stuff is stored on the campus "backup" drive, and my really-super-essential-important stuff is also stored on a flashdisk. So I need to just pitch the printed out outlines of PowerPoint presentations and the scribbled-up copies of paper drafts and trust that at least one of the three computer-storage devices will "remember" them for me.