Meet My Desk: Lydia

Apologies for missing last week's Meet My Desk. Work and my stupid writing project were both chewing on me, but never fear, I'm back now!

Okay, maybe it's time to fear.

It's taken less than a month for it to look like a bomb hit my desk:-

It's a little tidier now since I took the picture, but... not really by much. But everything important is still in arm's reach so I'm still happy--if feeling a little penned-in. I suspect it's time to tidy again.

Today, I'm introducing a very special lady: Lydia, my Nexus 7.

Her existence is owed in large part to, of all people, Lucy, my Kindle. I take Lucy everywhere with me because you never know when you need an eBook and when I discovered her experimental browser I was hooked. But browsing on a Kindle is a slow and fiddly process.

I'd been wanting a touchscreen system for a while but spent ages agonising over which kind to get. In the end I settled on the Nexus 7. Ordering it was surprisingly stressful (big purchases make me nervous) and while I waited for her to arrive, I turned my mind to the knotty issue of naming. Well, for maybe half an hour until I concluded that since she'd be sworn to carry my burdens, then clearly the only name suitable for her was Lydia.

I may have spent a lot of time playing Skyrim.

She's lived up to her name ever since, not least by being so awkward to get out the packaging when she arrived that I had to loosen it with a metal ruler. Ever since then we've been inseparable--she comes to bed with me and carries my burdens in the form of random notes and snippets of stories, eBooks that don't work on Lucy and is always on hand for those moments when someone says "that person in this film looks familiar, what else were they in?" She's very much the workhorse of my technological items. (She's also quite handy for Temple Run 2. What do you mean "that's procrastination"?)

She's also very useful for my friends when I'm in Nottingham--usually so some of them can update my Tumblr with questionable content and so I can inflict creepy comics on them (that was my achievement last Saturday).

She also is happy to help as a light when I'm wandering around in the dark. That's not a metaphor, by the way: I'm one of those people who never turns on the damn lights. I'd be useless in a slasher movie

Not least 'cause there's no way I'd damage Lydia by bludgeoning the killer with her.

Next week: still no idea. I'm running out of things with personalities. If you're not careful it might end up being my car.