My office had a forlorn, abandoned feeling to it, as if no one had been inside it for months. My footsteps echoed off the floor and seemed to bounce around the walls and ceilings. Although I’d stopped by two days ago, I wasn’t really working here these days—I was just dropping in between treks through swamps.

My lease partner, Tessa, who’s a sculptor, was vacationing in Australia. I dropped her mail on her drafting table. Her work space was meticulously tidy, every tool hung on a Peg-Board, drawings put in neatly labeled drawers, her blowtorch and sheets of metal carefully covered with drop cloths. Quite a contrast to my own side of the building, with files on the edges of tables and office supplies that seem to migrate at will.

In a way, my space is too big, the ceilings too high, the way they can be in these old warehouses. I’d had fake ceilings put in in places, but the windows were around the perimeter at the top; I hadn’t had the money to tear down a wall to let in outside light. I did put up partitions to make the area more human in scale, with my desk in one, my supplies and printers in another, and a bed for when I needed to crash away from home in a third, but the big room at the west end was where I did most of my actual work.

There’s a little alcove with the couch and some arm-chairs to have casual meetings with clients, a setup with a screen for more formal presentations, a long table where I map out work in progress, a desk for my assistant, if I ever get off my butt and find a full-time person. I looked at the stacks of paper on the long table and decided I wasn’t ready to face them yet.

I walked down to the corner to drop my peacoat at the cleaners. Ruby Choi, who has cleaned spaghetti sauce off silk shirts and tar out of wool slacks for me, looked at it dubiously. “This coat has been through too much. I try, I do my best, but I promise nothing. You take better care of your clothes, you make my job much easier, Vic.”

“Yeah, that’s what the doctor said about my body, which, believe me, looks a lot worse than the coat.”

On my way back up Oakton, I stopped for a cappuccino and bought myself a large bunch of flowers, big red spiky things that stood out even in my warehouse. Welcome back, V. I., we missed you!