Greetings from my couch, er, my home office. I promise I am not wearing pajamas. I am also not wearing shoes, but that's ok, right? Welcome to Day 1 of the GA Voice virtual office.

What does this mean for you? In reality, unless you are an advertiser or in public relations, not much.

But if you want to mail us a check, or a book or CD to review, etc., please send it to:

GA Voice
PO Box 77401
Atlanta, GA 30357

Our phone number (404-815-6941) and fax number (404-963-6365) remain the same, and email is still usually the fastest way to reach us.

You can also still pick up our print edition every other Friday, and read us online and via Facebook and Twitter every day.

So why did we go virtual?

In short, because neither news nor advertising sales happen in an office.

That's not exactly a revelation, we know. Many media outlets, including LGBT outlets, operate without offices. ProjectQAtlanta has been virtual since it was founded. The Windy City Times, Chicago's LGBT media outlet, has been virtual since about 2008. And while the Washington Blade has a small office for administration, their editorial, sales and production folks work from home.

Once upon a time, back in early 2010 when we started GA Voice, we debated whether we needed an actual physical office. Even then, we weren't sure that we did, but the market was depressed, rent was relatively inexpensive, and we sure bonded a lot during all of that painting.

Fast forward to 2012. On any given day, of the six full-time GA Voice staffers, maybe three are in the office. All of us enjoy working from home. We also prefer to go to interview sources and advertisers rather than have them come to us. Even when we are all in the office, we have a tendency to sit at our desks and IM each other from five feet away.

At the same time, our landlord has been renovating our building, and we knew we could not stay in the same space when our lease expires in June 2013.

The current size of the office would not be big enough to accommodate our growth over another three years, and our landlord let us know that rather than adding a little more space to our suite, they would prefer to make our office part of a much larger space next door. So we knew we would have to move, at least to a different part of the building, and with all of those lovely renovations, our rent would go up.

Based on all of that, we decided a few months ago to go to a virtual office next summer. Then we thought, what are we waiting for?

We put our office up for sublease several weeks ago, and yesterday, we packed up so our new tenants could move in today.

In the midst of the move, our work continues. Today, Deputy Editor Dyana Bagby is reporting on YouthPride's own move (under circumstances that are not quite as happy as ours), Art Director Bo Shell and Web Manager Ryan Watkins are working on our weekly e-newsletter and "Hot Minute" video, and Sales Executive Marshall Graham is delivering copies of our second annual "Destination: Gay Atlanta" travel guide, which came out last week.

Associate Publisher Tim Boyd is waiting on a certain internet/phone/cable company to install new business phone and fax lines at his house (wish him luck). Me, I'm writing and editing copy for our next print edition, while debating with my cat over whose turn it is for the comfortable chair.

We're sure there will be a few kinks to work out over the next couple of weeks, but we're excited about the freedom that comes with our new virtual office — plus all the money we'll save on shampoo and deodorant on those days we don't have to leave the house!

Those of you already working from virtual offices, please comment with your tips: What works for you? What doesn't? When do you shower? How do you convince your pets that a laptop is not a lap, and therefore can't be sat upon?

Happy Friday!