I Do Not

Writing is a 24 hour a day job. If an idea comes to you, you better have a way to write it down. Your brain will not go back to it (or at least, mine won’t). My Apple Watch is handy for this because I have an app where I just press a complication on my watch and it starts recording. Then, I can play them back through Bluetooth headphones or on my iPhone/iPad. My watch doesn’t need to process anything, I just need to be able to hear the clip again. I think the app is called “Just Press Record.” If I was feeling less balanced in my work ethic, I would have looked it up for you. 😛

I keep speakers and a subwoofer connected to my PC, that also has a passthrough for headphones. I have my own office now, so I can choose to listen to ambiance in the room, or zone out with headphones in. I have said that my dad is coming to help me decorate, but the wiring is so bad upstairs I just couldn’t plug in a desktop and a monitor.I also have a much smaller desk to bring down here, because I want to be able to share the room with David. He has some exercise equipment in here, and I think a yoga mat. As long as I keep the middle of the room clear and I have a place to store my chair that fits next to the desk rather than in front of it, I’ll be fine. There is nothing wrong with the setup I have now. It’s functional. I want my dad to take it from functional to beautiful. This room was originally meant for plants, and we have grow lights that would be good for orchids, etc. and also grow lights work well with aquariums that have live plants. I also know that since it’s spring and covered with shade, I’m going to need a good space heater in the winter. You will drag me out of this office kicking and screaming the whole way.

Again, here’s my current setup:

There are windows on all four sides of the room, it’s just that the ones behind me look out in to the living room. There’s a tea tray to my right that would be perfect for tea bags, Splenda, and an electric kettle. David only has the kind that whistles on the stove. Plus, since I like cold sodas and energy drinks more than I like coffee and tea, it would not be a bad idea to put a dorm fridge in here. Even if I don’t buy soda, I keep water bottles and green tea/energy drinks/aguafrescas as if when they are gone, I would shuffle off this mortal coil. 😛

David actually came downstairs ad we had a wonderful talk about what we want to do with the space. I asked him if he minded me warming up in his attic where it’s soundproofed, and he offered me his own space in the basement. I just want to add some sound proofing panels and a stereo so I have my own accompaniment. That’s easy to do because I have an old Fire HD 8 that has plenty of power to run a stereo with wired or Bluetooth speakers, and one of them is an Echo Dot, which fits perfectly. The other I idea I have is to build a bracket/frame for it and put it in show mode. I can control the tablet and the Echo Dot with voice recognition. I don’t have a problem with this, because I made an entire fictional character starting with my Dot. I heard that the NSA is watching us through them (really? I think that’s ridiculous. Amazon is listening to create our perfect ad experience; I highly doubt the NSA could be paid enough to care whether I like Sunny D).

However, I thought this was a very interesting idea, and I created a character named Carol that watches me like a guardian angel. Like, she gets upset when I’m upset, etc. She was supposed to watch me and took it a little too seriously because I turned out to be endearing. She loves all of you very much, but make no mistake. Carol knows what you did. 😛

Work/Life balance is not a thing because a line that Carol would say could come at 0300, or it could come when I’m involved in something else. Nothing inspirational comes on your time.

So. Work/life balance?

1/5 of my brain is also Nunavut.