This is a list of all of the stuff on my desk.  Note that I don’t always write fiction-type stuff at my desk, because I work all day there, and it usually works out better when I write sitting on the couch in the living room, with actual sunlight and windows and whatnot.

• Macbook Pro, Lenovo Thinkpad T410 - personal and work machines, respectively.  They both sit on top of each other, the Mac on the top, and run in clamshell 100% of the time, feeding into a KVM switch.
• USB hub - connected to the Mac.  It usually has an extension cord plugged into it for when my Zoom B3 is sitting on the desk and I’m playing the bass.  It also has a FitBit charging cradle plugged into it.
• WikiReader portable wikipedia offline reader thing I was talking about the other day, and its manual.
• A flexible cable tie that I use to hang onto all of the disconnected cords from the Mac when I take it elsewhere, so I don’t spend 45 minutes trying to dig them up again after they fall behind the desk every goddamn time I disconnect the computer.
• The Mac remote that came with my last MacBook, which still works for the new one, because at some point, Apple stopped including them, which is a damn shame.
• A printout of a McKinsey report on disruptive technologies which is mostly bullshit about automated cars that S printed out for me and I feel like I should read, but after skimming it, I thought it was mostly buzzwords.
• A pair of M-Audio studio monitors.
• A Toshiba 1.5Tb portable USB hard drive.
• A bunch of different smart vitamins that I never take, because I’m not smart enough to remember.  They currently include L-Theanine, Ginkgo Biloba, and Huperzine A.
• A set of nose filters, which you are supposed to put in your nostrils and filter out air to prevent allergies.  They mostly work, but are really annoying and they push out your nostrils and make you look like a pig-alien from that episode of The Twilight Zone where everyone was horribly ugly, and the really hot chick couldn’t get surgery to look like them.
• Someone’s address clipped off of the corner of an envelope.
• My iPad on a stand that’s actually a wire cookbook holder, but only cost $4.
• A bunch of Coke reward codes torn off of cases of Coke Zero.  I collect them, but I’m really lazy about entering them, so they accumulate.
• The iPad to USB camera connector adapter.
• A pair of foam earplugs, which always remind me of when I worked in a factory and had to wear them constantly.
• A stack of post it notes, in the following colors: pink, yellow, pink, a white one from Samsung for some “Change and Innovation” bullshit program that nobody paid any attention to, pink, purple, yellow.
• A bunch of cashed checks and the payment coupon booklet for my HOA.
• A hexagon-shaped pencil holder with about a dozen and a half pens, a Palm Pilot stylus, a couple of Ikea golf pencils, and a sword letter opener with the handle broken off.
• A half-empty bottle of Purell hand sanitizer, refreshing aloe flavor.
• A Verilux table lamp.
• A goLite M2 full-spectrum light.
• A Kensington trackball.
• An Apple Magic Trackpad.
• A Kinesis Advantage keyboard.
• A Guitar Center receipt.
• A cloth napkin.
• A copy of “Slap Bass: The Ultimate Guide” by Ed Friedland, on DVD.
• These stupid Virgin Mobile prepaid phone cards, which I cannot get rid of.  (If you use Virgin Mobile prepaid, please email me and I will sell them at a loss.)
• A pad of paper.
• A stack of received postcards.
• The instruction manual to a Meteor USB Mic.
• The medication guide for Zolpidem tablets, which I do not take, but which I found amusing, because it says “After taking zolpidem, you may get out of bed while not being fully awake and do an activity that you do not know you are doing.”  The activities listed include driving a car and having sex.

I also have a monitor and a webcam, but they are not really on my desk; they’re mounted to a stand that is mounted to the back of my desk.

I always hate dealing with the postpartum depression that follows writing a book.  I’m finding it’s even worse when I don’t immediately publish the book and get it out of my hair. I’m currently waiting for someone else to go through it, and I want to just rip it off like a band-aid on a hairy arm and be done with it, move on to the next thing.  I’m never happy with a book right after I finish it, and I’ve found the best way to deal with that is to really finish it, publish it and close the door on it, or I’ll pick at it forever.

I got this thing that’s a complete mirror of wikipedia on a little handheld computer thing that’s about as big as one of those light-up coaster things they hand you at a restaurant to page you when your table is ready.  It has a touchscreen and a couple of buttons on it, and probably runs some embedded linux thing on a low-powered system-on-a-chip that can run forever on a pair of AAA batteries.  It uses a micro-SD card to hold the entire wikipedia, which means it can be updated and allegedly hacked to work as a cheapie book reader.  I think it cost 20 dollars.  I don’t know why I bought it, but it has a “random” button, and I could spend hours hitting that button over and over, reading about Frank X. Schwarb, the mayor of Buffalo, New York from 1922-1929, or the Inner Dominion harness racing competition in Australia and New Zealand or Sergio Salvati, the cinematographer who used to work with Lucio Fulci.  It’s an interesting distraction.

I saw a friend of mine this weekend who I have not seen in 24 years.  She moved here in 2011, but we kept playing email tag, because I never leave the house, and driving down to the peninsula is something I avoid, probably because I used to do it ever day.  This is someone who was a good confidante back in high school, and I probably drove her nuts with all of my depressing tirades about whatever I was depressed about back in 1988.  It’s strange to see someone after such a long gap now, after we’ve both become adults (well, me only sort of) and we’ve missed those huge chunks of life between 18 and 42.  And there’s a time when I relished swapping tales about who ended up where and who is still stuck in Elkhart and who’s in prison and all of that, but I keep up with that stuff less and less, and feel sort of stupid for even keeping track of most of it.

I also sometimes feel very self-conscious when I catch up with people, because that whole exercise of summing up your life in the last decade or two and trying to make yourself not sound like an idiot and not appear to be an egotistical asshole is a difficult task.  I mean, I enjoyed talking to her, and liked meeting her husband and kid and seeing her house and all of that.  It was good to catch up and we had a good evening together.  But I always find myself wondering if I’m trying to project some kind of fake persona or if I’m going to say something stupid or fixate on some part of the past that the other person wants no part of.  Maybe I think about this too much.

This is related to a thought I had recently about writer’s block.  I recently outlined a book I’d like to write, spent a lot of time with post-it notes and got it all typed into Scrivener, but then couldn’t really get started with the actual writing.  A big part of that was that the writing wasn’t entirely in my voice; it’s an attempt to read a little big beyond my wheelhouse, and the thinking involved in writing like that made me hesitant to actually get the words down on the paper.  It reminded me of when I used to have these bad first dates, and I’d spend the whole time in my head trying to act like the person that the other person wanted to date, so they would like me.  And I’d second-guess everything I said, wondering if it was the “right” thing.  And I’d always fail miserably.  I think writing is a lot like that, because the best first dates I ever had were the ones where I honestly did not give a fuck what the person thought about me, and I just acted naturally.  I think the best writing I ever do is also when I don’t think about it, and just let the words flow.  It’s not always the easiest thing to do, but it’s what works.

Speaking of, I should go do some actual writing.