Sunday, September 5, 2010

The Price of Dawdling


Ordinarily, I write on a laptop, but for the next few days, I'll be paying the price for dawdling. You see, my power cord has been leaving yellow post-it notes on the computer screen for the past few weeks, informing me that it won't last forever. I've read them, dutifully, and even stacked them neatly like pages in a book in plain sight to further remind me to get a new cord. Well, yesterday the inevitable happened and all my efforts to convince my cord to last another day fell on deaf ears. Instead of powering up the laptop, it just laid there, with blank, unseeing eyes fixed on a final note of farewell which read, "I told you so."

In terms of writing, this means resorting to the table-top model in the upstairs bedroom with its now alien Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. A gift of the gods while writing the final draft of our book, I loved this thing. I'm a big guy with proportionately large hands and months of late nights in its company convinced me I'd never adapt to the comparatively tiny geography of a laptop. Man, was I ever wrong. Now here I am, fumbling around doing a virtual hunt and peck because my fingers seem to have forgotten what to do with the equivalent of West Texas beneath them. If you've never driven across West Texas, think "vast expanse" and you'll get the idea.

Anyhow, that's how this keyboard feels. I've alternated between laying it on my lap, hoping familiarity will overcome awkwardness, and using the desk top, and either way, the keys don't seem to get any closer together. Not that I expected it to morph into the neat shape that nestles tidily onto my lap, but a little approximation would have been welcome. I suppose you could equate it with the resumption of dating after a long relationship. It's unfair to expect someone new to feel quite as comfortable as did Ms. What-was-her-name-again?, but you'd at least like them both to be the same species.

I know, computers are computers, and it could be worse, I might still be hammering away at the manual Smith Corona typewriter I had in college, the keys of which I pounded nearly into oblivion. So, yes, I am grateful for what I have, especially since errors like the thousand or so I've made since starting this post, are corrected so easily. I mean, it really would be inconvenient if I had to clean the White Out off the screen before beginning each day, wouldn't it?


(Creative Commons image by canuckshutterer via Flikr)

6 comments:

  1. I remember those 'ergonomic' keyboards... they were a sort of 'flash in the pan,' as I haven't seen any in quite a few years. I guess they weren't 'new and improved' enough.

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  2. Hey True Blue, Yours is a gift..the ability to write anything at all about whatever you like, so who cares what you write it on?? You still shine.
    You are one of the best Bloggers I know. I think if I asked you to write, say about, Dumping Rubbish on the side of the road, you would still come up with a spectacular story..LOL Well done as always. Hugs

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  3. Well, one thing is for sure, you'd think they'd have moved beyond the original design by now. I don't dislike the Microsoft keyboard and if I was working on a desktop all the time, I'm sure I'd get used to it again. It was a real asset when writing for hours, but I've adjusted to a new body position and all that kind of thing with the laptop and especially when using a lap pad (found at Staples and very helpful for staving off carpal tunnel) typing on the laptop is much easier than using the desktop.

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  4. Ah, gee, thanks Crystal, you make me blush! :-) It's nice to know things come out sounding easy because, as you know all too well, there are days when everything you think of sounds boring or repetitive, and you're afraid "yesterday's post" is the last anyone will ever read. I think that "fear" is what motivates us to keep trying to find something new, something unique, something that keeps us wanting to write as much as drawing readers back. There's a lot more psychology to writing than most people realize and it's the kind of psychology that surfaces in the writing process. Kind of like the way the pioneers of psychiatry like Jung, Adler, Freud, and Otto discovered much of what we now take for granted -- trial and error, examining themselves, and working together. YOU are one of MY best teachers, by the way. :-)

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  5. Narr, I have never read anyting you write as boring...
    Now for the next one...Good onya.

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  6. You are too kind, Crystal! Thank you so very much and also thanks for the inspiration for today's post. Hope you like it! :-)

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