This
is sort of embarrassing to say as a “writer”, but I didn’t own a laptop until
last week. I know most people over the
age of twelve have one already, but I’m slow to warm up to advancements in technology. I try new flavors of M&Ms the minute they
hit the shelves, but that’s because I’m comfortable with chocolate. Computers, phones, and Blu-Ray players baffle
me.
I
have to take this opportunity to mention that we owned a Blu-Ray player for
almost six months before I realized it.
I was actually at a Redbox renting a movie for the kids and I said, “Oh,
they only have this one on Blu-Ray. We’ll
have to pick something else out.” Brainy
looked at me sympathetically (because I’m mentally handicapped and he’s kind)
and said, “Mom, we have one of those.
The white Sony player downstairs.”
Oh.
Anyway,
my career is looking more promising, so my husband bought me an Ultrabook. I would tell you that’s another word for a
laptop, but I’d get in trouble.
I’ve
been really busy lately, so it wasn’t until today that I had a chance to take
it for a spin. (Just kidding, honey, I
handled it more carefully than I did our children as newborns.) And, well, things didn’t go so smoothly. I had the whole thing locked up inside of
twenty minutes and I was probably crying out of frustration after ten.
First
of all, I’m not very adept at avoiding an invisible mouse that’s playing possum
underneath my wrists. And I’m just
typing along, crafting beautiful prose and whatnot and then the bottom falls
out and suddenly my fonts change, or my margins, or I’m knee deep in a find and
replace edit that I never even started!
Sometimes my paragraphs would go rogue and set themselves up like poetry
stanzas. For every three words I typed,
I was hitting the undo button or backspace ten times.
And
it isn’t just the mouse that’s sensitive.
The keys are too. I was trying to
think of the appropriate adjective for a thought I was trying to convey, and I
left my fingers hovering over the keys for a moment while I looked up and
pondered. When I conjured the word I was
looking for and returned to my document, there was half a page of Ls. And don’t even think about breathing too hard
near the caps lock button. Or CapsLk as
he goes by in Ultra circles.
So,
I got this great gift and I can’t use it.
Not effectively. Once The Voice
of Reason unlocked my keyboard, I started typing this blog. That was four score and a fortnight ago. I’m hoping practice will make possible –
perfect being too far of a reach at this point.
I had a similar learning curve with my smart phone when I got it for
Christmas. I still don’t take advantage
of most of its features, but I’ve learned to use the ones I need, like checking
the weather and quicktexts and getting gmail updates.
The
plan was to use this contraption to blog, do my writing assignments, and create
amazing works of fiction on the go. You
know, like writing the next New York Times bestseller on the sidelines of
football practice or in carpool, obvious places for great ideas and
inspiration. But none of that is going to
be possible if I don’t conquer this mouse pad.
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