Ink Tea Stone Leaf

The last few weeks, I have made a strenuous effort to achieve optimal coziness when I get up to write each morning. I think it’s important to be comfortable in whatever you do, but comfort is one thing, and coziness is at the next level. When you’re cozy, you know you’re doing something right.

There are some things that make coziness difficult at the start of the day. First there is my body, which usually acquires many interesting aches and pains as I sleep, so that it takes my feet a little time to straighten themselves out and remember how to walk properly. Then there are my birds, who will cry out for their breakfast, and continue to cry as I give it to them, and sometimes keep on crying after I’ve given them everything they could conceivably want. Yoshi in particular will want to be out of his cage for the whole morning, and so of course I must have my eyes open and my paper towels ready to clean up his excretions. Getting out of your chair all the time to put dirty paper towels in the trash can is not very cozy, but holding a small bird in your hand and giving him the real good skritch behind his ears can help make up the difference.

I have many other advantages in achieving coziness. I have my robe, pajama pants, and slippers, which go a long way already. I have my assortment of teas; today I’m drinking “Mystic Rainforest,” a black tea with blueberry flavor from a company in Florence, Oregon, called Lovejoy’s (Shout out to Lovejoy’s for their contributions to a cozy morning). My breakfast varies, but today it’s hash browns straight out of the air fryer, a cozy morning meal indeed. Then there’s my chair; I bought myself a sturdy new computer chair for my birthday this year, which supports my back and cushions my bottom much better than my old one did. It has a very pleasant blue color too, and Yoshi has yet to ruin it with his ravenous chewing beak, though it occasionally needs to be scrubbed of his leavings.

Once I’ve got myself set up at my computer desk, I open up Musicbee, which is by far the coziest digital music player I’ve ever used. It’s where all my digital albums live, and I typically play them all in alphabetical order. This is, admittedly, not a guaranteed way of making sure I have the music that creates the precise feeling I’m looking for, but today has been a lucky day for cozy tunes. We’ve got Couldn’t Stand the Weather by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell, and the Cowboy Bebop original soundtrack on a generous 4 disc box set. If I’m still writing when that’s over (and I well might be), we have Cream Gold on the horizon.

After I’ve finished reading the news and whatever bullshit the internet brings me and I’m ready to begin properly writing, I open up LibreOffice, and grapple with the .odt document bearing the latest chapter of my work in progress, The Ghost of Canard University. My aim is to write around a thousand words a day, though I sometimes go longer if I’m on a healthy roll and I haven’t procrastinated too badly in getting started. This morning I’m starting at 27,164 words down, which is about half of my initial projected word count, and probably about a third of the way through the overall story.

Having to do the work is, of course, not nearly as cozy as sitting here at my computer, drinking tea and vibing with Yoshi to the deliciously eclectic music of the Seatbelts. But once I’ve done my time, I can spend the rest of the day on whatever suits my fancy, even if it should be my fancy to become even more cozy. On these long summer days, who’s going to stop me?