The Geezer Speaks

Setting: high school
Event: writing of first term paper
Length: five pages
Equipment: a manual ribbon typewriter, carbon paper, white bond paper, an eraser pencil
Required skills: decent typing ability, patience in abundance, inclination to prayer

This is for all you computer-generation writers who can type words as fast as they stream from your brain. It is especially for those who are unconcerned about spelling, punctuation, grammar, proofreading or editing.

I roll the paper stack (two sheets of bond paper with carbon paper wedged between) into the typewriter, take a deep breath, and begin pecking away, hoping the keys don't jam up if I go too fast, or bobble if I don't type with just the right firmness. Gratitude wells up when a few sentences go by without a typing error. But when one occurs, I carefully roll up the paper a few lines, and cautiously apply my eraser pencil to the offending letter. There is always the chance that the paper will tear or the ink will smudge. (No white-out available on the market yet!) If that happens, I get the satisfaction of furiously yanking out the paper, and after rescuing the carbon sheet from my ire, wrathfully wadding up the ruined bond paper and starting afresh--from the beginning. In the event that the erasure is successful, I carefully roll the paper back down in place, hoping that the alignment is still good. To complete even a single page might mean several starts, and once finished it is lifted carefully, even reverently, from the rollers and set well away from any hot drink cups, dogs who eat homework (I never met one) or thoughtless younger siblings.

Footnotes were always tricky, because with one hand you had to roll the paper up half a line and hold it while typing the number with the other hand. Then you had to make sure you left enough room at the bottom of the page for the footnote to fit in. Sometimes you had to hold the paper in place with one hand and type the footnote with the other hand, hunt-and-peck style, because otherwise the paper would fall out or the line would go crooked.

I could go on for a while about the agonies of early typing methods, but my point is this. Words were valuable when each one was pecked out anxiously, with beads of sweat on a brow furrowed in concentration. You thought first and typed later, because a thoughtless expression meant a frustrating restart. Hand-written first drafts were actually golden, magical tools that left the typist free to concentrate on the craft of typing, since the craft of writing was complete.

Now we all have blogs. Words come at you hard and fast, and you have to decide which ones to dodge and which ones to meet head on. Never has more writing been done, and certainly never in such a public way. It is like finger-painting--no, graffiti--in the world of art. Everyone can do it, but few become masters. It has become a less valuable commodity, because it comes so easily and carelessly.

Locked Out

Have you ever been locked out of your own house, unable to enter? Maybe it's not your fault either. The key broke off in the lock or won't turn no matter what you do. You want to bash on the door or break a window, but then you would be destroying your own property. It's frustrating, an interruption to an otherwise productive day, and undermines your confidence in things like locks and home security. Or you realize that home security just doesn't even exist.

Computer passwords are like that, too. I'm locked out of one of my own sites, using the correct user name and password. The computer gives me directions on how to get around that, and I think, what if it's not me trying to get in? Brick walls are built to keep people out. That's why people imply they are brought to a complete standstill when they run into one. So you climb over. I guess that's what the directions the computer are giving me are for.

Sometimes the opposite happens. You go to your site prepared to type in the password and the door is already open! Who's there, you wonder? Who's been looking at my stuff? Did I somehow leave the door open myself?

It reminds me to hold loosely in my hand things I call my own.

I Am Most Seriously Displeased...

I had fun writing the following, but bloggerland continues to confound me, and I have not been able to get any blog to accept my name or password. So Mr. D. Cous of the People's Republic, you wanted a snarky response!

Dear Mr. Cous,

This is your real opinion? This is your final resolve? Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Mr. Cous, that I shall even condescend to respect your opinions. I hoped to find you reasonable, but depend on it I will carry my point. Don't honor with your regard, for what it's worth, any people who try to pass Miss Austen off as a feminist. Miss Austen is a writer of comedy. Nothing more, but not the least in her accomplishments. If you cannot find it in your sensibilities to laugh out loud at the absurdities in her literature, then I take my leave of you. I am most seriously displeased!

I would agree with your assessment that this is literature suited more comfortably in the feminine sphere. Non-gentry males seem to actually like activity, while women have always centered their lives around their close relationships. However, to say disgustingly that nothing happens is a gross insult to the gentry and nobility of our culture. We pride ourselves on our ease of life and our leisure. Cannot you see that your American ideals of independence and industry are counter-cultural to our way of life where so many are economically dependent, and strive continually to move into the realm of gentry where no efforts are required? In fact, they are shunned.

Furthermore, it astonishes me that so few of you modern Americans understand the British countryside way of life, let alone the complexities of living in town. The landed estate was like the General Motors Corporation of the country. Whole communities depended on the financial success of these vast holdings. Because of the necessity of entailment laws, only one male heir could inherit the estate. That meant that the remaining children were given money and positions as recompense for not receiving any land. The male heir often found himself cash poor, and to marry for money was not only needful, but an act of selflessness, generosity, and even charity to his neighbors. Mercenary, indeed! And you, a student of economy of all people, should understand and sympathize with these measures. I would argue that as many men as women found themselves in pecuniary difficulties, and acted to prevent their own fall into degradation. There are always scoundrels, but do not lump them together with people who know what they are about: security, position and the welfare of their whole community.

It is my sincere hope that if we ever meet, my impressions of you, however prejudiced by your disgusting stubbornness regarding the highly respected Miss Austen, will be altered, and that I find you an affable and clever, although unavailable and untitled, young man. I may even condescend to give you my hand if you are suitably dressed and present yourself with some decency. Give my regards to your lovely wife.

Your's very sincerely,

Lady Catherine de Bourgh

Falling in Lust

It seems that Hollywood knows nothing about love and everything about lust. It is standard fare for two attractive people to just look at one another and then fall in bed together. It's getting kind of boring to watch these lies over and over again, passed off as something "real" and "forever" and what permanent relationships are based on. You can see it coming a mile off and it's only a matter of patience before the tongues come out and they start sucking on each other's faces like Thanksgiving is eleven months off and that's the only day they get real food. I see these "heroes" doing dubiously noble things and then go from chick to chick just like a mongrel who knows no better and is just following hormones. People make love and then the first little disagreement is a huge crisis and they are tragically disappointed that maybe their love isn't the real thing after all. It never was anything more than lust. Yet they all seem so concerned about knowing who the other person has been with, and will they do it again? Of course, because they have no character, no real heroism, not even a notion of what love is. And the next time lust strikes, they are as helpless as a plucked chicken and as spineless as an octopus.

The Ideas We'll Never Use

Sometimes moments of inspiration hit and I can hardly contain the excitement and thrill of exploiting the idea that is racing through my creative veins. Sometimes they come so hard and fast that an agonizing desperation rolls over me as I realize most of them will never come to fruition--there just isn't enough time in my life to make them all happen. Quilting ideas, writing ideas, home decorating plans, gardening schemes, how to save the world brainstorms--they all pile up in my head or occasionally in written notes, waiting to bloom in a winter of busyness and higher priorities. Seeing them stagnating, gathering cob webs and dust, and losing creative momentum by the nano-second is hard, and eventually they are entombed in that bottomless file drawer called, "The Ideas I'll Never Use". But they also inspire gratitude. Think of the opposite conundrum. No ideas ever. A desert of wasteland, sere, dead, not even existent. Give me a full file drawer of never-to-be-used-ideas any time over an empty, unimaginative brain.

Stress Test

When your life's activities are an overflowing sink of dish suds and you pull the plug that sucking whirlpool which drains away the excess ought to feel like relief. Yesterday was like that. Practically killing myself trying to get everything done that "needed" to be done on time before leaving town, I felt like a taut cord approaching the limit for the pull it could handle. Then Jack said, "Why don't you just stay home instead?" It was a possibility. Going with him while he did business had always been an option, not a requirement. Drowning people do reach for lifesavers. So I did. I stayed home. Within minutes after deciding, I felt that drain sucking off the stress. The sadness of missing his companionship followed, but if I had decided the other way, I wonder if he would have wanted my companionship. The sink would still have been full. I had been harried, angry, stressed beyond my limits, and exhausted. No. This was better, and he will come back today to a relaxed and grateful wife.

Eating Grapefruit

Eating grapefruit is sort of like doing your regular exercise routine. It takes some effort to get ready--I always scoop out all the fruit into a bowl first, and I have to get my gear and go to my local Curves facility. I'm happy and enjoying it once I've started both. I never regret it when I'm done. They are both healthy activities. With one you wipe juice out of your eye, with the other sweat off your brow. Both have a mild "bite" to them that is invigorating. With one you discard the peel, with the other you shed excess body fat. In fact, body fat is the usual reason for both activities! Given all these similarities though, I still prefer eating grapefruit to exercising.