Plans! part II

So! Guess WHAT?!

I have a standing desk!!!

Guess what else?

It was free. And I didn't have to cart it anywhere, or anything. All it took was a little ingenuity, and a lot of being fed up with waiting and spending money.

When I arrived in Vancouver, the place I would be living was already furnished, and, as one of my housemates told me later, it had been furnished quite cheaply. The dresser and bookcase (which is quite a glorification of terminology) had been free off the side of the road, and the bed had been hers in a previous life. I have always disliked the furniture; it's ugly, defective, whatever. But you know? I've lived with it this long and it hasn't killed me, nor do I imagine that it will in the coming year. Free just does that to things, you know?

So I kept thinking about getting a new dresser or two, and devising elaborate ways of constructing a standing desk. Night after night, I'd fall asleep thinking about this, a trait which I believe I inherited from my father, the obsession about home improvement as a method of happiness and relaxation. I'd go to IKEA and get a really cheap bookcase, only like $25, and use that and a piece of plywood from Home Depot and a dresser propped up on a cheap wastebasket, or a pile of phone books...where would I find the phone books? How on earth was I going to do this?

In the meantime, I kept sitting at tables, my knees cramping, my legs screaming, fidgeting and hating my slouching and yet being powerless to do anything until that magical date, the 22nd, when we'd move out and everything would, miraculously, change. Then, the other night, I was talking with my ex-and-future-housemate Rebekah, who has gone to New Zealand for a year, and I told her of my plans. She informed me that there were about four or five phone books in the cleaning closet upstairs. My mind went crazy - one of my problems, solved! All I needed to do now was find a suitable piece of furniture and then I was good to go.

The next day, I spent the first half of the afternoon running errands (did you know that the word errands comes directly from the Latin, and means wandering? Anyway), including thrifting for furniture and sampling paint colors. I found no furniture, and far too many paint samples, and went home slightly defeated. Bustled around the house a while, ate. And then I remembered the phone books. And hated the idea of spending money with a fresh loathing that trounced all desire to see the inside of that thrift store again. I grabbed two of the phone books from the closet, and marched downstairs, slammed them, stacked, before my dresser, and stood on them. They were curiously squishy beneath my feet. Pleasantly so. Before I could think twice I'd grabbed my computer and moved it to the top of the dresser, and opened it. Wouldenchanowit, it worked. It's a good height, comfortable, and it's free. Maybe I'll paint the dresser blue to make it more presentable - I have plans. As usual. But for now, it will do quite nicely.

And I still can't get over how awesome it feels to stand while working. My feet hurt a little, but I don't feel drained. I feel like I have control over my posture. Now we'll have to see if I can study like this...

Kate