Tech Writing

Well, now I’ve gone and done it.

I bought a Blackberry.

Holy crap. I’m obsessed with this thing.

I’m not a techie. Never have been. I don’t really relate to the logic behind computers. I want to know why something works not accept that it just does.

As a matter of fact, I took a “business computing” class my first semester in college, and even with a tutor who had a major hey-I’ll-give-you-the-answers-to-all-of-your-professor’s-final-exams-for-the-last-four-years-if-you’ll-just-say-it’s-okay-for-me-to-kiss-you crush, I still got a “D.” I’m nothing if not principled.

I didn’t get the iPhone, even though they're so, so cool, because my cell phone carrier doesn’t offer it. And when confronted with the idea of trying to move everything from one account to another after six years of pictures and contacts, my head started to hurt. I’m sure that was a very simple fix, but it was too much to get my head around.

So here I am with a Blackberry. Hope I can figure out how to use this thing before I break it,..


Crazy week. Non-stop forward movement. I’m completely wiped out. Is it okay to want to stay in bed for a week straight? Seriously. Can I do that? I just don’t want to do anything that doesn’t include a pillow and being motionless in a horizontal position.

Finally finished all the course work for the writing class. USF emailed me back on the grad school application date. I can start this summer, and they’ll let me create my own program to complete the dual degree. So that’s cool. Still, there’ll be no lying down in my immediate future. All this moving forward is exhausting. But it’s ultimately satisfying to decide on a goal and set about meeting it.


Talked with Carrie and Julia and Lynn. They’re all experiencing their own version of a crazy week, too.

Carrie’s got the new puppy and a husband with the flu.

“He’s got the swine flu!” I joked with her.

“Yeah, that’s what I keep telling him,” she said and laughed.

“Damn it. I’ve locked the keyboard. How do I get this thing unlocked? It keeps saying to press the unlock key. How do I press it if the keyboard is locked?”

“Did you read the manual?”

“That would be cheating,” I told her.


Julia was so stressed out over all the things she needed to do before she and her husband met with a mortgage broker, she found herself doing none of what she actually needed to do and sitting on the couch watching The Biggest Loser.

“Just sit down tomorrow morning over coffee and write a list,” I told her. “Then do one thing at a time. Every time you cross something off your list, you'll be that much closer to getting it all done.”

“Paige? Are you there? I can’t hear you.”

Beep.

“Sorry,” I said. "I hit the mute button."


Lynn’s oldest daughter is getting married, and she called me after two drinks and one very carefully worded conversation with her husband about his plans to walk his stepdaughter down the aisle. Her daughter has invited her biological father and his family to the wedding.

“It’s her wedding, so ultimately, it’s her decision,” I told her. “Just be supportive but give security a heads up before the ceremony starts.”

Beep, beep.

“What was that?”

“I think I broke it.”


People would always ask me how I did it. How I could be a single mother, work full time, go to school, and manage a household. I’d tell them I didn’t think about it. If you think about all that needs to be done, you become overwhelmed and paralyzed. You don't need to worry about how you're going to get everything done, you just need to believe that you will.

And now that I’ve figured out that I can check my email and balance my checking account on my new Blackberry, I find that I’m not really worried about why it works. I'm just infinitely grateful that it does.

And I’m closer to becoming a techie than I ever would have believed.