I’m sitting in my home office on a late summer evening. Outside the crickets crick and the katydids katydid.

I spend a lot of time in this small room – just 10 by 15 feet in dimension. It has five doors, two large windows, one built in bookcase, and a chimney stack running through it. Add to that the desk, tables, three bookcases, sleeper sofa, and cat play tower that I’ve brought in – and you can see that the space get’s pretty cramped.

Years ago, before computers, I fancied that I would turn this room into a gentleman’s library, and painted it what I thought would be a deep forest green. I figured I’d toss in some lush rugs, a few winged back chairs, and loads of books, and spend countless evenings reading here. But the forest green turned out to be more of a jungle green, and I unexpectedly needed a place to hold computers, and so soon the ‘Green Room’ as I called it became my rather crowded home office.

And so I hang out here, and my cats hang out with me. Lately they’ve taken a fancy to sleeping on the last remaining CRT monitor – a pocket of warmth that they seek out, even in late summer.