So...

Again. The photo on the left? What I'd like to be seeing outside. The photo below? What I really see outside.

No, wait. What I really see outside today is snow.

That's right.

We're having a snowstorm.

It's a few hours later coming in than they expected, but it's here now. The snow isn't quite as heavy as they said it might be (knock wood and all that), but the highways are apparently a mess and it looks like I'll be staying where I am for a little while longer.

March. Riiight.

Puts me in a wonderful mood, as you can imagine. The only thing weather like this is really good for is delaying the onset of the good old spring allergies.

Frankly, I'd rather have the allergies. At least you can take pills for them.

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As I sit here at the keyboard typing about my snowfall snit, for whatever reason I've been thinking about typing. The act of, I mean. It's entirely due to my mother that I can type at all, you know.

My mother insisted that we take typing in junior high.

I have no idea why, other than she thought it might be useful.

I hated typing class. I didn't know why I needed it, and I'm old enough to have taken typing in a room full of manual typewriters. Erm... do I need to explain typewriters for anyone out there? Well, kids, back in the old days keyboards were called typewriters and word processing involved figuring things out in your brain before putting them directly onto a piece of paper. No, really. It's true. No CPU at all, and in the case of manual typewriters not even any electricity. It was all hand-cranked, back in the days when we walked five miles uphill both ways to get to school...

Those manual typewriters were a nightmare. They built up a lot of finger strength, yes, but they were sooo noisy. The mechanisms were noisy, the keys hitting the papers were noisy, the bells at the end of the lines were noisy, the carriage returns were noisy (seriously, boys and girls. I'm not making this up. We had to manually return at the end of every single line. It's a wonder we survived, really). I'm a pretty noise-intolerant person, and an hour's worth of typing class would leave my ears ringing and my head aching.

But I did it.

My mother wanted me to.

I wonder why.

She was an office manager herself, but I don't imagine that she ever thought either of her kids would be. Our interests were in other areas. And she couldn't have possibly predicted way back then that most of the western world would be spending hours and hours every week in front of computer screens working away at the modern version of the typewriter, could she?

Maybe she could. Maybe she was that far-sighted. I don't know.

And even though I hated typing class, I can't say that I hate being able to type. Not that I'm a great typist overall. I used to be a lot better, but you tend to get some bad habits going when you're no longer thumping around the manual keyboards. I can touch-type, however, and I do use all of my fingers rather than pecking things out so I guess typing class was a good thing in the long run.

And, thankfully, this keyboard doesn't have an obnoxious, ear-ringing bell.





I suppose we've had some progress to cheer about, then.

*ding*