Steve Crosby

Designer in California

Making SpaceI cleared off my desk this morning. Not organized, cleared. Everything went into a box on the floor, and the box went into the closet, and for the first time in months I could see the wood grain. It’s strange how much noise objects make. A stack of mail is a list of things I haven’t done. A cable I don’t recognize is a small mystery I keep choosing not to solve. None of it is loud on its own, but
Goodbye GardenWe pulled up the tomatoes today. The vines had gone brown and brittle, and the last few fruit were split from the rain. Every year I plant too much and every year I’m surprised by how quickly it ends. In July the garden is a jungle. In October it’s a few stakes and some string. This was the first year we grew everything from seed. In February the kitchen counter was covered in yogurt cups full of
from my windowthe neighbor’s cat sits on the same fence post every morning at 7:40. i don’t know where it goes after that. a man walks by with two coffees. one for him, one for someone. i like not knowing who. the light comes in sideways this time of year and lands on the floor in a long gold stripe. by noon it’s gone.
Small RepairsI fixed the drawer that’s been sticking since we moved in. It took ten minutes and a bar of soap rubbed along the runners. Two years of yanking it open. Two years of saying I’d look at it this weekend. I don’t know why small things are so easy to put off. A big problem demands attention. A small one just sits there quietly, costing you a few seconds a day, and somehow that’s never enough to make y