posted 2007/05/05 at 21:01
Last fall I finally bought a new computer desk after using the same bargain basement tiny model I'd used since before the house fire. In my old bedroom I managed to fit the desk into my room fairly well, but for some reason, even though I have more space in my new bedroom than my old one, I couldn't find a good spot for my computer desk once I moved in here. The end result of this was that I had my desk so close to my bed that I had to sit on my bed when I used my computer instead of sitting on a chair, which in addition to being uncomfortable (that arrangement caused me no end of back problems), but also made it very hard for me to work at my computer for any appreciable length of time. That arrangement simply had to change once I got around to working on my masters thesis, so I bought a new desk and moved things around in my room so I could actually sit on a chair while I worked. (This meant moving a whole bookcase out into the loft, but the drawbacks of that were far outweighed by the advantages of the new arrangement.)
The other thing that this did was that it changed the standard view I have out of my window while I work here. Under the old arrangement I looked kind of east-northeast out of the window, which wasn't much of a view once we built the addition for my father's office, since that and the neighbours' high fence kind of dominated the view. Now I look out to the northwest, though, and apart from our detached garage (and I-475 behind our property line), I have a wonderful view of the outside. The trees had already lost their leaves by the time I got this desk up in the fall, so this is the first time I really get to see leaves outside in this view, and it's a wonderful sight that's likely only going to get better over the next couple of weeks.
Still, the most amazing tree we have on our property is on the west side of the house. It's not as imposing as the huge tree in our backyard (north), but it has sentimental value because that's the tree my childhood swing was attached to, and in the autumn the leaves turn this amazing kaledioscope of yellow and orange and red that's just completely awe-inspiring. Both of my bedrooms have been on the west side of the house, and in my old bedroom I had a window looking right out on that tree so I could always see it when it started to turn all those amazing colours. When my father redesigned the house after the fire, though, he took away all the windows facing the west and the east. I'm guessing that he did this as a way to help conserve energy -- he's kind of big on that sort of thing (our property has far more trees on it than any other piece of land in our neighbourhood) -- but if I had a west-facing window then I'd be able to see that tree from my position at my computer here as well. I don't know, I think the value of being able to see that tree from inside would far outweigh any potential increases in heating and cooling bills that the windows would result in.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon