Desktop Travelers

They say you should be careful what you wish for.  A while back I expressed a silent plea to the universe to send me more work--not the tedious, mind-numbing data input kind but something I actually enjoy--like transcription work. A few weeks ago a client found a box of old cassette tapes of conferences from 30 and 40 years ago, converted them to CDs and has been sending them, small batches at a time, ever since. 

Today a new client queried about my doing a lengthy, two-part interview, to be transmitted by a DSS file.  And so I'm spending a lot of time at the computer listening to voices and keyboarding speeches, dialogues, anecdotes, historical reports, ruminations, etc.  It's a mezmerizing world, where time passes so quickly: one minute you sit down with a morning cup of coffee, to begin; next thing you know it's supper time and you've somehow missed lunch.    I have to remind myself to go outside and, as they say here, "take the air".  Get some sun.  Walk or bike the stiffness off.

In the meantime, I've been doing a bit of traveling--vicariously, that is.  Yesterday I was at the beach. It was deserted and the sky and water and sand were just right.  I have no idea where it was.  I downloaded its image from the Google Images page and set it as my monitor's "wallpaper".

Today I'm in the little town of Llandudno in North Wales.  I'm changing my visual wallpaper every week or so now.  I have always wanted to go to Wales.  This is probably the only way I will ever be able to do so, seeing as how even wild horses couldn't drag me onto an airplane, nor could I afford the ticket.  I thank whoever it was who gave me the gift of unrelenting imagination, though. That you can look at a digital image and mentally put yourself there, be in the scene, not just observing the landscape but imagine feeling the brisk air, warmth of the sun, hear the sound of the rainfall on a tin roof, people talking in a language I can't understand.  That you can go anywhere, into the past, even. 

This happens also, from reading words in a book, or pulling some cherished memory out of the place it's stored in your head, and re-living it.  What I find amazing is that it's sometimes so vivid, you almost don't want to 'come back.'

Meanwhile, back to the grind, so to speak.  Voices from the machine are calling.  Keystrokes to go before I sleep (apologies to Frost).