I must obey the internet

The internet tells me many things.  It says that with by knowing just one weird old tip I can lose tons of weight, put on massive amounts of muscle, earn $400 a day part time from home with no skills, and get a quick pardon for any criminal history I might have.  I feel it is safe to not listen to the internet on these topics. The internet also tells me things that are true and I feel obligated to act on them; this probably makes me live longer but certainly doesn't make me happy in the short term.  Just recently I read that sitting is bad for you.

This, certainly, isn't news on its own.  The interesting part is that sitting isn't just bad because it sets you up to be obese and suffer from those attendant complications - I can't get away from it just because I have an outrageously active metabolism.  Sitting itself is very bad for you in ways that aren't entirely clear because we understand the correlation but not necessarily the medical reasons.  You can't fix it by engaging in big bursts of exercise nor by eating well as both of those things help but even people who eat well and pump iron die young if they spend the rest of their time sitting.

This is obviously a huge problem for me because I spend an awful lot of my time sitting.  I don't have a car so I can't succumb to the lure of driving everywhere but I don't actually leave my house much so it hardly matters!  I decided that sitting at my computer all day every day is something I have to fix so I decided to go for a standing desk.  Clearly I am not going to give up my addiction to the computer so another solution was required and a standing desk sounded intriguing.  First I went out to the local Solutions store that sells packing and organizing stuff and bought the best object I could find for the job, a giant white tub.

I, being a certified genius, figured that I could just perch my monitor, keyboard and mouse on this thing and then take it off of my desk when I wanted to convert it back to a sitting desk.  The tub was a big failure though because it was not strong enough and the lip around the top edge was really a pain.  I was considering where I would store the tub when not in use and I thought, "Hey, I could store the giant tub on top of the wooden toolbox since they are about the same size!"  A few seconds later I began to wonder why exactly I bought a stupid plastic tub when I have a flat wooden box about the same size already in my condo....

Now I have a surface that is both sturdy and flat.  I gave it a whirl on Thursday and Friday and it is remarkably nice to stand while reading and working.  After a while standing there though I nearly keel over when I try to move and my lower back seizes up completely.  I hope long term I will be able to work like this with less discomfort because otherwise I am going to live longer and spend much of my long life gimping around like an old man.  Maybe this just illustrates how badly I need to do this and get myself used to actually having muscles engaged for a significant chunk of the day.  Only one way to find out.