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Why and How Do Little Annoyances Add Up?
They might not be much by themselves, but altogether they’re something.
I live in an apartment. It’s an amazing home for my wife, cats, and me. We each have our own office space, shared bedroom, decent-sized kitchen, and a small deck. The apartment is on the second floor of a three-floor unit, and in the winter we get sufficient heat from the neighbors around us that we’ve never had to run heaters during the winter.
The neighbors below us have a mostly quiet dog, though sometimes she’ll get barky. The neighbors above us mostly keep to themselves, except the teenage girl — whose room is above my office — sometimes plays her music too loud and has had a temper tantrum or three that I was unfortunately privy to.
While writing full-time, I also have a couple of part-time jobs to help pay bills, do my book editing, and cover art. I work for two amazing entrepreneurs. They operate very differently from one another. Sometimes their expectations of me and their need for my time can be a bit overwhelming.
I love my two cats. They play favorites, so for each, one of us serves as the “spare human.” The cat who favors me — Thalia — feels the need to jump on my desk, walk across the keyboard, and sit just adjacent to it while making it hard to type. Then, she…
