Post

Pretty close to noon-thirty and here I sit with my laptop, having so far taken a nice hot bath because it was delightfully nippy this morning, made a mess of two toads-in-the-hole for breakfast (I know I used to be able to make those without destroying the eggs), reading a lot of email that really did not need to be read (or, in many cases, even sent, but I guess it’s nice that we all have this once-removed way of checking in with one another all over the world, making our small comments on this and that to people we don’t even know), and collected the mail from the mailman because he had a little package for me (and I appreciate his banging on the door even though it was only a $1.99 book from Alibris.com, because we have experienced mail theft here in The City). The mail also included a copy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button from Columbia House, which I was quite sure I did not order, but the website recalls otherwise. I wonder if any of the kids want it? Maybe I’ll ask.

The book is something called Touchstone, which Rhyannon in Colorado suggested, through GoodReads.com, I ought to have a look at. I actually know Rhyannon as a flesh and blood person, which puts her in a special category among my friends, and I take her suggestions more seriously than someone who I may only know as an email alias. And, as mentioned, the book was $1.99 through Alibris.com.

Gods, almost everything in my life ends in .com. I vaguely remember a time before the Internet. I vaguely remember that I wrote a couple of books in the early ‘90’s on a computer that didn’t do anything except process words, green on green, and allow me to shuttle around clumps of text. I thought that was amazing. The books were really seriously train-wreck horrible but they were excellent therapy to write as I found myself *circling the drain of depression – and the ability to feed my words into a machine like this and then print them out, well, that was amazing. As I just said. Someone in my writer’s group suggested adding something called “software” that would allow me to change fonts and someone else said I should get a modem and a mouse, but that was all way way too technical. I was good with just typing and inserting and deleting and shuttling around.

What else have I done lately?

Oh, yeah, I ordered a new Blackberry through my cell phone company, formerly Working Assets, now known as CREDO. I hate the new name: it reminds me of Comcast, which had something they called their Credo stenciled on the walls in the call center in Concord. We were supposed to memorize it but I never did – it was some insanely idealistic heels-clicking brown-nosed drivel composed by someone who had reached Upper Management without a decent grasp of English vocabulary or grammar, and I found it repellent all the way around. As a result, I hate the new name of my cell phone company so much I thought about changing to T-Mobile, but I still like having a liberal activist phone company with customer service up in Nova Scotia. I’m not sure whether that’s ironic, or appropriate. But I called them about the Blackberry and what would happen to my new 2-year contract if we moved out of the service area (fax proof, no termination fee) and the woman there in St. Johns said “aboot” to me. How cute is that?

Anyhow, I’m getting a Blackberry because I hate hate hate trying to text using the regular keys and people keep texting me, so I would like to be a trifle more facile with replies. Also my current phone camera takes pictures that look like they were shot through a lens sitting in murky pond water. And I have noticed that a lot of people can access Facebook or even their blogs via their phones and I can’t do it from this little LG, even though it claims to offer Internet access. I expect I’ll lose my special ringtones, which I like and had memorized (‘American Pie’ is Noah, ‘Take On Me’ is Jonah, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ is Abby, etc., etc. …) and that will be sad because I’ve checked the new collection of Credo ringtones and they, um, suck, but not as badly as they did during that one grey period right after the company name-change when all you could get were the various calls of endangered animals. Whose stupid idea was that? I want to become freshly distraught over the plight of the polar bear every time my phone growls? Maybe that guy got fired and went down the street to Comcast (which also has a support team in St. Johns) and composed the Comcast Credo.

Of course, what I am supposed to be doing, what I’ve assigned myself to do, is working on any one of four (or is it five?) novels-in-progress (largely in my head). And spending time on the treadmill. Since I’m having trouble unwinding what exactly is wrong with the first novel (something clearly is – I suspect it lacks a plot), I think I’ll load ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ into my laptop here and go out back to the treadmill where I can watch an episode while walking.

The day shouldn’t be a waste.

*I’ve been watching a lot of Grey’s Anatomy and ER lately and have been charmed by the hospital phrase ‘circling the drain’ for a patient who is dying on the table. Again, how cute is that? Grim, but cute!