Monday, March 02, 2009

Random Monday thoughts

NPR gives you great things to think about. This morning as I drove to work I heard Wallace Stegner's son discussing his father's writing habits--no idea what occasioned this discussion. But it seem Stegner wrote on a manual typewriter, never electric but the kind where you have to put real pressure on each key. It gave him time to think about what he was writing, carefully choose and craft his words and sentences--and the care shows in his writing of course. Then tonight, I read a blog by several mystery writers who were discussing funny typos--bowels for bowls in the kitchenware section, pubic for public, etc. Several of them said they make typos because their brains go faster than their fingers. So maybe there's really something to ponder in Stegner's method. Computers make it easy to be quick and glib, to almost write without thinking. Some will say that's letting your creative self go and following where it leads you, sort of like the tried and true theory about letting your characters tell you what they are going to do. All I know is I write too fast--but I rewrite and rewrite, over and over. No, I"m not about to go back to a manual typewriter. I remember those days when if you edited, you had to retype the whole darn book.
Then in a e-mail newsletter this morning, my friend and yoga instructor Elizabeth said she had been interviewing people about whether or not they thought they had courage and just what courage is. A littlel put out that she hadn't asked me, I wrote back that my first instinct was to say I have zip courage, none, not at all, because I am afraid of so many things--elevators, escalators, airplanes if I'm alone, losing my balance, etc. But then I decided maybe I do have courage because I make myself do a lot of the things that bother me. And, I suggested, maybe it took courage to raise four kids by myself. Elizabeth kindly replied she had always thought I had courage--among other things in running TCU Press. Thinking about yourself in terms of courage or lack thereof is an interesting exercise--I suspect men are more likely to say, "Of course, I have courage." But I know a lot that don't.
Jamie came over today to bring me the TV he got me for Christmas--it's to go in the bathroom, but even with an antenna, it gets poor reception, so the bathroom will have to be wired to AT&T U-Verse, like the other TVs in the house. Two installers told me it was impossible but Jamie could easily see a way to do it. Then he noticed the installation in the kitchen and went indignant--the installer tried to come down through the wall and left a 3-inch hole in the plaster--but the cross beams in an old house stymied him, so he put a plastic plate over the hole (it doesn't cover all the scraped paint and you can pull it off with two fingers-- some mouse might just push through it some night!). So now the wire comes into the dining room, snakes along the floor and around the corner into the kitchen, and then is clipped up the wall (with clips that pull right out--stay away, Jacob!), across the counter and makes a big loop under a cabinet. It is unsightly, but I had decided I just had to live with it--TV reception is great. No way. Jamie called U-Verse, told them he was calling for his mom (his exact words made me laugh--"She's not old but she's not the type to complain"). He must have spent 20 minutes on the phone (while we both practiced yoga--he's a lot better than I am). Then I talked to the supervisor of the hour who was most apologetic. They will file a damage claim for the wall and send yet another installer (I think I've had four so far) to do it right. And at that time I'll ask again about the bathroom. The man I talked to almost fell all over himself apologizing and thanking me for my patience and finally said something to the effect of it being really great to see a son stand up for his mom. I agreed. We'll see what happens.

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