Prezzie for Me

* * * Update * * * 1:22pm It is here. I am about ready to jump out of my skin. And it is green, too.

I bought myself a present. It will arrive at my place of employ tomorrow. I am so excited I’m wiggling in my seat as I think about it.

I write by hand all of the time. I have a black leather journal in which 5”x 7” notebooks fit perfectly. I write notes and to do lists and story and craft ideas, character descriptions, cool sounding names, mood swings, poems, everything, in this journal.

I print small. I write big with looping letters and loads of flourish. Some pages are filled with columns, others with drawings or cartoons. Other pages have stacks of sticky notes on them from the times I can’t get my journal out of my purse fast enough. Other pages have sheets of scrap paper tucked in them from when I’m at work and I grab some paper from the overhead bin on my desk.

Sometimes I write in pen, other times I use different color markers. Every once in a while I jot notes with a mechanical pencil. Once I was so desperate to write something down, but couldn’t find a pen that I used a package of yellow mustard while I was attempting to drive my car. (Not really, but can’t you see it?) My journal travels everywhere with me.

I use my journal to clarifying my thoughts and download the junk that floats around in my head. It is my therapist and best friend. While it helps me weed through tons of junk to get to a final writing project, I can’t write anything in it that I later want to be a finished piece. For some reason, I will not play the role of my own secretary and transcribe.

I hear some of you quietly murmur that I do have a laptop. I love my laptop. It’s a DELL, with a huge screen and pretty features and lots of fun things to do, like talk to you on the internet, or look up word definitions or search Wikipedia for arcane and pointless knowledge or learn how to use Facebook or make movies or moving cartoons or, um, what was I talking about?

As you can see, I am easily distracted. I am also very busy. The things I like to do must fit in with a 50 hour a week job, a husband, a child, a dog, parents, my brother and his family, housekeeping, bookkeeping, exercise, a social life, as meager as that is and occasional schooling. I forgot what I was talking again and now I’m tired to boot.

I need compact. I need structure. I need focus. I need lightweight. I need the AlphaSmart Neo.
This neat little word processor weighs less than two pounds. There’s no internet. It is just for writing. I’ll be able to go out to lunch and type away for an hour. I’ll be able to type in the car when we go places. I’ll be able to sneak it out of my bag in the bathroom at family functions. It turns right on. It has auto save of every letter you type. The battery has 700 hours of work time. The display screen has large letters and only shows several lines of text, so there is no stopping to read the jewels I produce. It’s like an electronic typewriter. Talk about focus. I’ll be able to kick some writing arse. I love the word arse, don’t you? Huh? Yeah, I’m off track again and I was going to tell you about something else too but I’ve forgotten what.