I'm up early for a Saturday (remember last Saturday?). I've been awake for about an hour and a half, woken by figuring-it-out dreams that melted into a figuring-it-out consciousness and that means sleep is dead to me for now. No amount of shushing and turning over and finding a more comfortable position, rearranging pillows or duvet will sort this. I must go down and write.
And so having spent some time figuring out what it was I was figuring out and then some time resisting coming down to write, here I am, writing. I know that this sort of disturbance needs to be written out and possibly shared, it's a sign there's something going round that needs to be articulated and won't be fully resolved or understood until it's out there.
Oh, that's my coffee there, you can also see my notebook (I've started carrying one of these school exercise books around with me and practicing writing in the odd moments no matter how odd the place. And that's also my audio recorder (the black thing with the button on it) still there from transferring last night's podcast.
So what was the disturbance? What was keeping me from going back to sleep that needed to be articulated if not fully resolved?
I was dreaming about creating blocks on the Steem blockchain. I've been considering this week whether to start to run a witness server. It feels like the right thing to do. It feels like a good commitment to the community. I've just finished a run of real-life service to a group I'm part of and I was looking for something different, this might be it.
I've been writing, creating media and curating on this blockchain since August 2016. I've had tremendous fun, collaborating with others, making new friends, firming up existing relationships, introducing people to the wonders of cryptocurrency and learning a huge amount myself. I've been fortunate to have the regular support of several Steemians voting up my posts and a big SP delegation from 
I attended SteemFest2 and was inspired by the sense of community and the feeling of love everywhere we went. I'm number one a people person and this connection online and face-to-face is very important to me. I'm organising SteemCampUK which will be a participant-led unconference for us to talk about Steem, meet other Steemians and learn from each other.
But I'm not just a fluffy-bunny extravert. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Computing and Information Technology from the University of Surrey. And while I've never been a Linux sysadmin proper, I have installed and managed webservers and content management systems in the commercial and public sectors and am familiar with Linux as a desktop user - running a witness would mean learning a bunch of new skills through practice, which I relish the idea of. I'd like that sort of balance in my work, a machine to befriend in addition to the more complex beings I encounter.
I need to be sure that it doesn't become a time and money sink. I wouldn't be working hard to be in the top 20 and it's not completely clear to me yet whether the economics of minting maybe a dozen blocks a day against the rental of some pretty fearsome hardware are sustainable.
But I do seem to be talking myself into it, as the level of coffee in the mug slides down towards the bottom and I feel ready for breakfast rather than going back to bed.