Categories
Dream Journal

Wizard Camp & Ephemera

I’m a servant on an expedition somewhere reminiscent of Egypt. I am enlisted as an unplanned mediator between leaders of the expedition when they can’t reach an agreement. It’s my wizard friend Devin Person and some fancy Cleopatra-esque girl. The setting is like a Burning Man camp or an Arab Bedouin tent. We’ve set up a shade structure, the corners piled with throw pillows. There’s difficulty figuring out where to put the camp’s garbage can full of nitrous chargers. When they do their nitrous ritual, there’s a special mantra people are supposed to say; it’s inscribed on a plaque on the wall. I’m not really looking forward to hosting people.


In my hometown family room. A foil musical record is kept in a locked metal closet. There’s a love note from an acquaintance, Lydia, to her husband Paul da Plumber discovered in outer sleeve cover of photo album.

Review for Flora Grubb, perhaps Flora Grubb’s relative with the same last name.

Sailor Moon’s design, or redesign, focused around big boobs.

Practicing my long synthesizer keyboard in the garage, the keys can be early lifted off. That’s how I discover that they are for some reason wider, as I lift one up, turn it around, and compare its size directly to the beautiful antique piano with gold autumnal inlaid keys.

Categories
Glot

This Keyboard I Got

I’ve been thinking about it.

I don’t really write too often. I enjoy writing, and always have. It’s a pleasure to create and speak and I attest (as someone who enjoys the sound of their own voice very much) that I enjoy talking as such.

But I don’t. And why is that? Writing written off by minutiae. I want to read more about this thing. The laundry needs hanging. I have to work tomorrow morning. When was the last time we ate out? I should clean up the room. I want to wait until I finish the other website I’m designing. There’s a backlog of pictures to upload. I need to do X before Y because Y is not as immediate as X, although Y is a long-term goal so I’ll still feel bad and want to.

I don’t know why I don’t write as often. I guess that I don’t identify as “a writer” much anymore, because I do so many other things. But I still write. As said before and better, by others, it fills all the little gaps in one’s daily existence. It rests in small spaces between cracks in the sidewalk, tiny green life poking through the sidewalk, not defiant, just pleasantly and idly existing. I may not write like a madman, fifty-thousand soldiers strong, but I write.

Today I write anew. Today I found a keyboard in the basement of my place of work, and I took it home and it is magnificent. It is a vintage IBM Model M keyboard with bucking spring design; the keys are pressed, they give resistance, and then they *click* and the moment they click the character is registered. There is no latency. There is no softness. It is a machine and it is mechanical. It’s called force-feedback, and it is totally neat. It is a different feeling, one I’d never expect. I’ve typed this whole thing with nary a typing error to speak. Amazing.

And now I am reading the Wikipedia entry on the Model M and I notice something… this is the keyboard of my childhood. The very keys I used to play “Ernie’s Big Splash” when I was 6, are the keys I now use to blog about not blogging. Incidentally, the former still seems more fun. Incidentally, I still don’t like the word “blog.” And now I remember that I used to write on that thing all the time, back when computers had the one font and the one size, text white on blue, and what-you-saw wasn’t what-you-got cause that was set on the printer itself. A matrix of dots made the things you wrote magically appear, and then they could go on the fridge or something.

All of this does beg the question, though… if something as simple (if sensory) as clicky-typing can cause me to reflect on my writing and gain understanding of why I might do it or not do it, and write this much about writing, aren’t I preoccupied with it enough to put a little more effort into it?

I refuse to make a resolution. How bout a to-do item instead?

To-do: write more. Clicky keys nice.

Categories
Glot

Cordless! ess-five-ten Logitech

I am so happy that my new keyboard works as intended. This is, like, the most awesome thing that has happened to me all hour. The keys pronounce a pleasant clicking sound with each nimble tap on their scissor-switched little square black forms. And while they are not as sensate-savvy as the infamous Model-M‘s, the relative mechanical feedback is quite satisfactory. Plus, I can appreciate the wrist-rest for what it is—a boon from heaven. Plus, plus, the weight’s a plus. All in all: A+.

 
Categories
Glot

Birthday Wishes

Starlight, star-bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may I might… you know the rest.

I didn’t actually get that much for my birthday. Bought myself a wireless keyboard. Walked my dad through getting another year of Flickr (typed in the credit card myself.) What I got was um… kind of a uh… peace-a-mind. A resolve. Something I’ve wanted to do for at least a month now: write everyone in my life who deserves to be written. Oh, and there’s a big list to get to…

  • Aynne Valencia
  • Lynae Straw
  • Meredith Scheff
  • Jenna McKay
  • Donna Fitzgerald
  • Emily Wentz
  • Michael Bandli
  • Lauren Wolfer
  • Josh Nebgen
  • Petr & Zdenka
  • Allegra
  • Ryn
  • Jerome Gagnon-Voyer

And I think that’s it. I’d always like to add more. This year for my birthday I want something from myself [laughter]. I want myself to be the kind of person who fulfills that which I want from myself. This is all very deep, and very cathartic. And I’m glad I went outside with a tape recorder and acted all inspired and talked into it and then came back inside, feet freezing, and transcribed all of it. I might go outside more often.