This is a love letter. Make no mistake, my heart has been stolen. But to understand my current state of devotion, you must first understand my history….
Yes, you read the title of this one correctly. No, it is not tongue-in-cheek humor. And before I move on, Gentle Reader, let us be completely open with one another: I am a true academic at heart (translation: proud dork), and yet you still read my posts. So, please set the judgment aside and let’s focus on discussing the succession pattern of my expo board addiction. In all its dry erase glory!
In the beginning, there was Expo Board.
He was beautiful. A successor to my hand written notes and charts stuffed inside my Franklin Covey planner book. He was a virtual work of art in the realm of organized color, geographic lines, and ideological progression. Why the latter? Well, when I sit down to organize a “board”, I imagine it is similar to the way an animator plans a story board…
If you didn’t take my statement about loving expo boards seriously before, now you KNOW! This is a craft.
Action Steps | Story Board | Expo Board |
The idea is created. | What, oh what, will my short comic be about? | I need a bit of organization in my life. Oh! Look, an expo board. |
The themes are developed. | What grand obstacles will the characters face? | Which categories of my to-do list or calendar will be featured? |
The plot line is fleshed out. Graphics take shape! | Scenes develop as pen hits paper. Characters get faces. | The list is given headings and sub-headings! Woot! |
The denouement arrives. | The storyline wraps with a funny quip or character action. | The list is prioritized, given color, starred and “approved” for maximum efficiency. |
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| Example of a film storyboard |
Expo Board lived a happy life. Standing 24 in x 36 in, with silver framing, he provided a repository for all of my great ideas and accomplishments! He arrived during my tenure at my first post-college job, and kept my world happily spinning on the ever-organized axis of Pre-Planning. On many occasions, and to the never-ending amusement of my co-workers, Expo Board would travel home with me at night. We developed a very intimate relationship—not quite as intense as my relationship to my makeup drawer, but a very co-dependent one. When I left post-college job, there was a ceremony for the handing off of Expo Board*; I felt confident that I was leaving it in very competent and invested hands. Lit-Lover Friend (I struggle to find an apt name here), as we will call her, was excited to be given the responsibility of ownership, and I have it on good authority that she was a good steward of his utility.
For some time after that, all during the “major life change” discussed in post One, I was content to use a small 8 x 11 in expo. A mini, emergency board. Effective, but not nearly vast enough to house all of the major life goings-ons and need-to-finish projects of my daily life. But I was (fairly) content.
Then one day, the incredible happened. I was reminded by the very same co-workers who used to mock my dedication to Expo Board that my eccentric affection for the white surface area was indeed a legacy: Bae posted this love letter. It is the first love letter that Expo Board has ever received, and I can promise you—as we discussed the matter at length in purple dry erase marker—that he was very, very honored. In fact, if his “pink” color pen hadn’t been running low, he might have blushed at the flattering portrait of himself painted into the FaceBook universe for all the world to see.
Expo Board < mini expo < Love Letter Board
As you can imagine, my own emotional investment in the universe of the dramatic Expo-topia was beginning to get out of hand! I was consumed with the terrifying thought that I was keeping some very talented “expo” from his or her true purpose in life: to provide structure and meaning in a rainbow spectrum of colors.
And who was I to DO such a despicable thing?!
Was I not the one who inspired others to give their expos the respect and gratitude they so rightly deserved? Do they not organize our lives, designate our household chores to various roomates, and provide a doodle-zone for over-active children? Well, of course they do!
And with so many expos ABANDONED by their manufacturers, just waiting for a home and a steady hand in penmanship, how could I ignore the call to seek out a lonely, new expo?!
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| Don Expo |
In the end, Don Expo found me.
He was sitting in a corner, just facing me with a sort of resigned apathy. One moment I was rifling through files, desperately trying to figure out a better organizational system then my multi-subject notebook, when he caught my attention. He was cool, aloof even.
I looked up, and my green eyes met his white surface. He was original, he was tall, he was broad—and I was smitten.
He stands 6 ft x 2 ft, has silver framing, and doubles in utility as a rolling cubicle door. YES. He blocks the onlookers with his deceptively boring gray front panel, as he flexibly moves around my little nook like a sparrow in mid-current flight. He moves. Don’t you see?! He adapts to my life, but does his own thing. He might even pay a visit to our neighbors on his own once in a while! Best. Friendship. Of. My. Life.
While the font is quite small, Don Expo is impressively shouldering the responsibilities of my duties as a grant writer, GAP team member, patient (a few Dr appts on there), and girly-girl. His magnetism also makes for ideal color accessorizing in the form of the colored dry erase pens. I am as giddy typing this, as I traditionally am on Christmas morning.
I cannot tell you where this new expo/B-Verbose collaboration might lead: it is possible that I will walk into the office and never see Don Expo again. But, I fail to see how I will ever find another of his caliber, in this or any cubicle-based universe.
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