Thursday already?

I love this new laptop. I take it with me places and make actual effort to sit and write when I have moments between meetings, lessons and other taxiing which tends to take place with kids.

Now that I am a semi-published print writer, my husband decided I should have a new computer. He told me that I needed one which not only had a screen I could see and which has all of the letters, but which also has keys large enough that I didn’t commit the heinous number of typos I tend to make my own. As my informal editor, he has the right to make such requests, and now having typed on this new computer, I see his points.

I never realized what a boon it would be to have all of the keyboard keys. Intact. And with keys not gummed together with age and food items I’m sure that were dropped in there and had reformed into something semi-solid.

Years ago, I belonged to a friendly group of writers in a small town in at the base of Mt. Rainier in Washington State. A small bunch of 8 or so of us met regularly under old growth alder trees at the end of an unpaved, rock road in an old barn behind the host’s main house. There, every Thursday evening was spent, munching popcorn and sipping drinks as we pored over the prose of one another from 7-9 pm, kept company by myriad leaning, painted portraits of in a style reminiscent of early Limner paintings.

One of the ladies in the group had sold her computer to a friend who was also in writer’s group, and who had a need of a faster system. I remembered her telling the story of the excitement of her new system. She was writing her novel, and as her fingers slew across the keys, she revealed her tales for us weekly. Unfortunately, one key had the tendency to stick to the point where she finally pried the key from the board. She said, “I removed the key, and, seeing that it was apparent some liquid had been spilled inside the keyboard (otherwise in perfect shape), I sucked the back of the key to clean it. Then I replaced the key and it functioned with no problems ever since!”

I loved her ingenuity. I never thought to deal with sticky keys in this way.

At the following Writer’s Meeting, she was absent, but her friend who had sold her the computer had come to keep us company in that barn under the trees. While we crunched, smacked our lips at the many flavors popcorn salt apparently came in and marked manuscripts, one of the members said to her, “Well, Judy is sure enjoying that computer you passed along to her! Myrna blushed ever so slightly. “I feel badly,” she said, leaning forward. “I think a few of the keys stick slightly.” We all remembered the story of the sticky key from the previous week.

“My cat peed on that keyboard, you know.”

What I took away from that lesson is the obvious fact that even though certain keys might stick like the dickens, I bought my last laptop used, and stuck those keys will remain.

In fact, it’s a testimony to my ingenuity that, as a writer, I’ve been fully without the “w” key for the entirety of the last year. Rather than take the key off and give it a good spit-sucking to, I became bound and determined to just use words that didn’t have “w” in them. This has, overall, enhanced my ability to be creative with the other 25 letters of the English alphabet.

Now I have grudgingly moved away from an older lap top to a new state of the art jobber that will take your picture and think for you. It has all of the keys, an impressive dictionary of terms to assist me with when it comes to spelling (no longer attributable to a shoddy set of keys), and a microphone, in case I want to say things into this system for any reason whatsoever. Take a note, Nigel.

Most importantly, I am finally in tune with this system’s real capabilities and its speed, as well as its placement of the keys in beneficial places, the larger ram, rom and everything else that could be considered laudable in a system, aside from the obvious fact that the shiny new case is always a thing of beauty. I am a mistress of my domain, the FTP Fairy, and use the technology for good. I play a sweet game of Minesweeper.

... and Thank You

Estrogen alert! Run away now if you can't take the International Coffee Massengil moment.

I have to say that I am overwhelmed by the support. I can't keep up with the comments, and more keep coming.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to let me know what you're thinking. I read every comment, and I am going to to respond to as many as I can. I want to commit to all of them, so if you've asked something, and I haven't answered, please let me know. There is never anything personal in not responding.

Between homeschooling an autistic son (who's adorable, and I love him to bits) and others in public school, and all of them dealing with standardized testing right now, I'm wiped. I'm also fund raising chair for a local not for profit and am maxed out having to worry about the next fund raising episode. I hate dealing with money. I especially hate being the one others rely on for the group's money. This is so outside of my usual comfort zone.

Writing and visiting with you is an incredible highlight of my day. My hair can look terrible, and I can have a day where my ankles float, and still there's you. I can have a drop of tomato sauce on my shirt and you're not going to think I was hit by a BB gun at close range.

You're slimming, affable (even when cheeky), kind (even when honest), and caring (even if you sometimes doubt the way I do things. That's what friends are.

I don't think I'm cool because of the overwhelmingly positive response. I think I'm lucky.

I'm fortunate to have friends like you.

I am not going to break out into a Barry Manilow ballad of "This One's For You," but I do want to say thanks (if you've ever heard me sing, you don't need to hear me say that I'm showing some mercy).

(And that spot on my shirt this morning is evidence of my Diet Coke issues. I dribbled a little bit.)