NATURAL TIPIST

I’ve never made it past the second week of a typing class. I am no more than vaguely aware of any structured method of finger placement on the keyboard, nor touch typing, nor any other methods of typing for that matter. However, I do fancy myself a rather naturally skilled typist.

The other night, last night I think it was, I sat at my keyboard and, keeping my eyes on the monitor, proceeded to type the alphabet. I wanted to see how far I could get, how often I could hit the correct letter without looking at the keys. Each mistake would lead to the start of a new line.

On the first line I typed up to the E before hitting T instead of F. I hit the return key and started my second assault.

I stumbled on I.

I sailed through the next line until I replaced R with E.

Then I typed V where C should be.

After that I followed J with L.

And so followed line after line after line of false starts, stumbles, and surges until finally I made it from A to Z without a mistake. By the sunrise my cramped, leaden fingers had typed ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ all the way through nonstop a seemingly infinite number of lines of times.

I’m typing this with my nose. It’s times like this that I really wish I didn’t have the proclivity, if that’s the correct word, to write such long, overly-worded sentences.

This isn’t my first attempt at typing without the use of my sand-filled aching hands. I thought that if I used my chin I could still monitor my progress on the computer screen. I was wrong. And besides my chin is just too wide to hit only one key at a time. I tried holding a pen between my teeth and tapping the keys that way, but I kept dropping it and biting my tongue.

So I’m stuck with a sore and increasingly raw nose. And to top it off, I had to keep my eyes closed so that I wouldn’t cheat and look for which key to hit. I even made it straight through from A to Z a few but impressive number of times in a row.

And now here I document my achievement for all to read and know that I am a natural typoseffvtrrrrrrfgdf

(1999)

BEST & WORST

The best milkshake I ever tasted was made by a friendly old soda jerk in an old-fashioned drugstore in the little town where I grew up.
The worst milkshake I ever retasted was made by my drunk college roommate by combining chocolate chip ice cream and Schlitz Malt Liquor in our dorm room in which I later threw up.

(2004)


WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER.

Well, that depends on the question. If the question is “What band did Eric Burdon form after leaving The Animals?” then the answer is “War”. If it’s “What’s good for absolutely nuthin’?”, then again the answer is “War”. “What’s a really violent bloody confrontation between powers which results in death and destruction?” Again “War” Is The Answer.

(2004)