Mensamom’s Musings

There is a phenomenon known as “Phantom Limb Syndrome”.  Amputees experience it during the first months after having a limb removed, and, in some cases, it can last years.  The brain perceives signals from the nerves in the missing limb, and interprets them as sensation.  An amputee will feel pain in an arm or leg that is no longer there.  (Until recently, no one knew what to do for these poor people to alleviate their excruciating pain.  In a previous blog, I mentioned a contemporary genius,  Vilayanur Ramachandran.  He has come up with a solution and you can learn about it here.)  In my life I have, thankfully, never been in a position to completely understand this phenomenon, but I recently came close.  While I have never lost a limb, about a month ago, I dropped my laptop.

It was early on the second day of E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Expo.  My husband had been religiously following the proceedings on the first day and had asked to borrow my laptop so that he could view the streaming key note presentations.  “Why not?”, I thought.  No harm in letting a geek borrow technology.  It’s not like he can do anything to hurt the laptop.  Of course, I was right on that point, but it was when I “borrowed” my own laptop back to check my email before heading to work.  I picked it up off my husband’s desk, used it, and got ready to put it back on my husband’s desk when I lost my balance and dropped the whole thing.  I watched it, as if in slow motion, spin out of my hand and slide onto the floor.  Not having time to inspect the damage myself, I left a quick note scrawled on a paper towel (don’t ask) and headed off to work.

It wasn’t until later that day I learned of the havoc I had left in my path of destruction.  Not only had I trashed the hard drive in my brand-new two-month-old laptop, but, horror of horrors, my husband could no longer watch the streaming E3 videos!  He tried everything he could think of before finally acknowledging defeat.  Luckily, I was still under my warranty, but the process of filing a warranty claim, getting the new hard drive installed and getting all of my software took FOREVER.  And in the meantime, here I sat, twiddling my thumbs, without a computer of my own to be able to do my “stuff”.

I was still able to check my email on my phone, and I did borrow my husband’s system occasionally, but for the most part I was an involuntary Luddite for several weeks.  Of course, being in a position to NOT be able to write made me all the more anxious to write.  The longer I was without my laptop, the more I began to miss the freedom I felt (and had taken for granted) with my own portal onto the web.

Now that I am back, I am slowly gearing up to where I was before.  I have been posting to Facebook and Twitter, I have been playing my online-time-waster games, and finally, I am writing again.  It almost feels like I am starting all over again, and in a way, I am.  Today is a new beginning in brand new world.  One where I don’t drop my laptop ever again.

I decided last week I was going to take the weekend off for Mother’s Day.  I was not going to worry about writing, just going to enjoy the weekend.  That was all well and good until Friday morning.  I was in the shower, getting ready for work, and I started thinking (always a dangerous prospect with me) and I began composing in my head.  And I remember thinking it was a really good idea for a writing topic.  It then segued into two topics that were somewhat related, with the closing of the first to be sort of an introduction for the second.  So, I decided, right there in the shower, that instead of taking the weekend off, as I had planned, I would write both topics after I got home from work.

So far, so good, except that on Saturday afternoon, we were hosting a family party for Mother’s Day.  Both sides of the family were coming to our house.  By the time I got home from work, the remainder of Friday afternoon went to straightening up the house and doing what I could to get ready for Saturday.  Still OK.  Put the toddler down for a nap, and I was ready to write.  I came in to my desk, sat down, and fired up my browser.  My home page links to my Gmail, and I saw that I had several new messages.  I went to Gmail, and found a couple of other online things I needed to take care of before I could write.  Still OK.  Should only take a few minutes.  Half-way through my short list of tasks, I started having trouble.  I called to my husband (who was at his own workstation, doing HIS thing) and asked him if he had done something to our WiFi that would interfere with my ability to access the internet.  It was about then that we realized that we had no outside phone, either (no internet, no internet phone).  Grabbed my cell phone and called our ISP.  We were part of a “known outage” that should be resolved in an hour or two.  Still OK.  I started going through my coupons, making my shopping list for the store.  By the time I got done food shopping, everything would be resolved and I could sit down and write.

The toddler woke from his nap and we headed out to the store.  When we finished our shopping, I called my husband to have the older boys ready to come out and unload the car.  He answered our house phone.  Great!  The outage had been resolved and I would hop on the web and write to my heart’s content as soon as the groceries were put away.  Still OK.  My topics were still floating around in my brain.  Maybe not as fully formed as they were in the shower that morning, but enough that I was going to have no trouble reconstructing them.  By the time I got home (five minutes later), our internet was out again.  I put the groceries away, fixed dinner, and fed the heathens.  Finished up the last of the dishes, got everything squared away for Saturday.  Still no internet.  On the phone again with the ISP.

This time I was not as nice as I had been.  I told “Cedric” (like that’s his real name) that we had been told six hours prior that we were part of a “known outage” and that the problem was supposed to be resolved five hours ago, but we still didn’t have internet.  “Cedric” said that the outage was resolved and we needed to reset our modem.  Done, but still no internet.  “Cedric” offered to have someone come out on Saturday.  I told him that was fine, as long as they could come and go before noon, as we were having our party at 1:00.  “Cedric” told me he could do this, but he had to have a phone number for the tech to call before his arrival.  I assured him someone would be home, although I would be at work.  I told “Cedric” the only phone number for the people who would be home on Saturday is our home phone, which wasn’t working BECAUSE WE HAD NO INTERNET.  The service tech could call my cell phone, but I would not answer because I would be at work.  “Cedric” said if the tech called and didn’t  get an answer, he would assume that no one is home and would cancel the service call.  Clearly, we were not getting anywhere.  My husband told me to hang up, and I told “Cedric” I would have to call him back.  The toddler and I went in and started getting ready for bed.  Still OK.  I had been reminding myself of my wonderful topics and I would be fully ready to get up in the morning and, at the very least, jot down some notes before I go to work.  I set my alarm for extra early, so that I had time to write.

Saturday morning and my alarm clock is going crazy.  I hit the snooze and went back to sleep.  Crazy buzzing again.  Time to haul my butt out of bed.  Jumped in the shower, reviewed what I was going to write about.  Got all ready for work, and, surprise, surprise, NO INTERNET.  Sigh.  Still OK.  I made a couple of notes on some scratch paper in the kitchen, and headed to work.  Once there, my boss and I had a short conversation about me leaving early to go home and get ready for the party.  That should be fine, she said, and that was the plan right up until the part where we did 1/3 of our expected business for a “normal” Saturday in an hour.  So much for leaving early.  I finally got home and set to the food preparations for lunch.  Everyone came, we ate too much, and then sat around and visited.  Still OK.  I figured I could write once everyone left.

The party was over, everything was cleaned up and I was too tired to think.  I sat down and watched some TV and veg for bit.  When I finally was ready to sit down to write, I began looking for the paper with my notes on it.  Still OK.  As long as I could find the paper, I would be able to write about whatever it was I had been thinking about in the shower on Friday morning . . . . except that I couldn’t find the paper.  I searched through all the piles on my desk.  No notes.  I kept looking, all the while racking my brains trying to figure out what it was that I had thought of in the shower.  I finally concluded that the scratch paper must have found its way into the garbage in the last-minute clean up for the party.  The most I was able to resurrect was the closing line of the first topic – the one that is the introduction to the second topic.  At this point, I will still be able to write the second one, but somehow, I feel that it will be diminished because of the missing lead in.  I had it at one point, but now it’s gone.  I am losing it.  Check that.  I have lost it.  And I will probably never get it back.

Today I was asked to proofread someone’s recollections about an English 110 professor’s introductory lecture for an evening class.  It was the first night of class, and the professor was trying to put everyone at ease and give them a little window into what the next 16 weeks held for them.  The paper, as given to me, was technically fine.  The mechanics of the paper were good. The only time a “fragment” came into play was when the author was writing in a style approximating the professor’s speech patterns.  As a paper, it was excellent.  But I found myself drifting away from reading it as a proofreader would and reading it as a Reader would.  I found myself recalling my own college English courses and the variety of professors I encountered during my years of writing under direction.  I say that because, when I was in college, I never wrote for pleasure.  I only wrote what I was told to write – research paper, paper to persuade, you get the drift.  No creative writing (despite the fact that I took several “creative writing” courses.  Don’t be fooled – creativity has nothing to do with it).

Anyway, what this particular professor had to say to his students on their first night of this English course that was required for graduation was fascinating. While he was telling his students what to expect in the course, in reality he was telling his students what to expect in life.  How learning how to write properly could make the difference in whether or not they got that next promotion.  The ways we express ourselves in print leave a lasting impression.  I cringe when I am reading something written by someone who really should know better that has glaring grammatical errors or spelling mistakes.  At the very least, it shows technological ignorance, as almost every word processor available has some sort of built-in spelling and grammar checker.  If you send an email to your boss and he or she reads it and the first thing that comes to their mind is a “Hee Haw” sketch, maybe you need to consider revising your writing style.

Recently, I came across a box of papers from college – returned assignments that I had held on to for some reason that seemed important 20 years ago.  In those papers were some of my English writing assignments.  They certainly weren’t stupendous, but they were good, solid writing. Clear, concise, to the point. I was able to convey my message in just a few pages.  Looking at them, I remembered how much of a pain it seemed at the time to have to do this pointless exercise, but my college professors were preparing me for the world.  They were teaching the structure that is considered acceptable for meaningful communication.  I don’t think any of them envisioned a future that included the blog as a form of communication, but they certainly wanted what we students were writing to be welcomed by the larger world.  I only wish that all teachers had the compassion, care and foresight that the teacher I read about today seemed to have for his students.  He really knew how to teach – not teach his subject, but teach his students.