I dragged all of the junk out of my filing cabinet last night, and none of it, and I mean none, is going back in until it is converted to Word files on my laptop, and saved on CD. This is long overdue. It is patently ridiculous to still be writing poems and short stories on typewriter because:
1. I am at the whim of a 20+ year old piece of machinery, which requires five dollar cartridges far too frequently.
2. When I run out of ink, it is always in the middle of a writing fever, and there are some things you just shouldn't f*** with. In The Paper, Randy Quaid says "It's writing like butter. I mean, there is actual butter coming out of my pen right now." You don't f*** with that.
3. I can't take enough time crafting perfect sentences, it all just comes out at the same time. I don't care for five pages written in an hour. It's too much.
4. Typewritten pages cannot be quickly edited.
And the pros:
1. I am frequently at the the whim of the machine, and that gives the writing a sense of urgency.
2. I am using up natural energy and money with each keystroke, so it better be worth it.
3. There is a hard copy.
4. Typewritten pages cannot be quickly edited. You have to retype them. End of story.
At any rate, I'm phasing out the typwriter for prose, keeping it for writing notes and diary entries. A girl's gotta have standards.
Highlights from my endeavours:
"He didn’t find his work particularly interesting, but had learned to operate without excess thought. He could go through an entire day without learning anything new about the world outside the building he worked in. He started each day with a cup of coffee with artificial sweetener, sitting at his desk. He would do all of his unpleasant tasks first, having learned not to let them accumulate like sediment at the bottom of his in box."
- From "A Slave to Simple Pleasures"
"He was a lounge singer at a time that didn’t care about lounge singers. He sang old standards like “I’ve got a crush on you” and “The way you look tonight”. But he didn’t have much else going for him. He wasn’t a novelty act, he didn’t put on women’s clothes. He was black, but none of the black people claimed him, because he was from up north and sang “music for white folks”.
His father had named him Morton, because his father only had one ear. The other had been burned off by white men. A man like that knows the value of staying out of the spotlight, so he named his only son Morton. Kids had called him Morty.
He called himself Alistair Brown, and none of the colored people came. A few white people would come, music lovers, but they didn’t know how they felt about this black man singing Sinatra. Women found him intriguing, until they realized that he didn’t have a steady job and he didn’t listen to anything but big band and swing. He didn’t care for anything else.
The only redeeming quality of his stage show was that he was immensely talented. But that almost wasn’t enough.
- From "The Lounge Singer"
"She was in her early twenties, reasonably attractive, but she had never had a boyfriend. She had a suspicion that dating, along with the necessity of marketing herself to strange men, was beneath her. She sometimes considered going to bars, playing the game, tossing her hair and talking about Foucault. But she never did.
Late at night, she would visit the internet and sift through the avalanche of profiles on dating sites. Entertaining tiny fantasies about the men she saw there. In the end, it was the sheer preponderance of options that kept her from starting a relationship."
- From "The Stalker"
Yes I know, a lot of work to be done.
In other news, it is Valentine's day, and this holiday can suck it.
Love and Nosebleeds,
Garland
Oh my lord, what a hottie!!! This boy is so fine, my eyes are about to catch fire!!! Look at those kissable lips, those beautiful eyes, oh, everything about this boy screams boyfriend material.
