October 16th, 2009

The plan yesterday was to work on the Elizabeth Custer book, but I had to put it aside to review the final pages of the Buffalo Bill book that had come from the editor. My editor sent the pages via an attachment to an email and it took me two hours just to get it opened and then another hour to print the material out. I am lousy with computers. Even the relatively new computer I have, which was supposed to be easier to learn, confuses me. Computer technology moves faster than John Goodman going after a Cinnabun. No matter what computer you buy, now matter how much you spend, by the time you get it to your car, it’s an eight-track player. True, computers have made it possible for us to do our jobs much more quickly and efficiently. And what do we do with our newly acquired scads of leisure time? We sit on-line for hours in chat rooms, participating in imbecilic exchanges with people we wouldn’t be caught dead talking to in person. Just when did all this computer stuff happen anyway? You know, one day I was playing Pong, the next thing I know Stuey, the gas meter guy with the eye patch, has an uplink to a satellite on his tool belt. Even our cars are computer complete. I’ve got a global positioning device in my truck. Hey, listen, I’m going to the store for milk, I’m not Magellan tracking around the Cape of Good Hope, all right? Tell me, O global positioning device, where can Ponce De Chris locate the 7-Eleven in my neighborhood? I must secure nectar of the cow lest my king be disappointed, and so I have brought much silver and gold and colorful beads to appease the keeper of the Slim Jims behind the counter, who appears to be in a wretched mood when I beseech him to avert his gaze from his Twittering. Okay, maybe I’m a little rebellious when it comes to the whole technological blitzkrieg. Nothing serious. I’m not going to stop shaving my legs and live in a dirt-floored Fotomat in Quiet Lonerville, Montana. It’s just that everywhere I look, there’s such a dependence on synthetic forms of communication. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned face-to-face insincerity. As for my computer skills, there hasn’t been anyone this ineffective at a keyboard since Susan Dey was in The Partridge Family. That’s why I prefer to use a Dixon No.2 pencil and a giant legal pad to do my writing.