Keyboard

from here

I used to believe that laptop keyboards were singularly conducive to brilliant writing, and that if I ever found myself the proud owner of a laptop, the flatness and silence of the keys would compel me to sit down immediately and type the world’s greatest novel. Sadly, this never happened; as much as I loved the feeling of my new laptop's keys, I soon discovered that it takes more than a beautiful-feeling keyboard to be able to write books (I WAS AS SHOCKED AS YOU ARE).

My beloved laptop’s now four years old and starting to experience the kind of health problems which inspire hyper-vigilance about backing up assignments, so we bought a desktop computer just in case there was ever a morning when my laptop could not be roused and it was clear the end had finally arrived. I put off setting up said desktop computer for months because I could think of approximately 1700 ways I’d rather spend my time than downloading the various programs I use every week and trying to guess all of the passwords my laptop’s been kindly remembering for me for all these years, but when my class finished for the year I ran out of excuses and bit the proverbial bullet. (It tasted like proverbial metal.) (I don’t even know what that means.) (I’m so tired, you guys.)

I didn’t write a novel on my laptop, but I did start writing my blog soon after I bought it, and now that I’m having to use my new desktop keyboard for typing I’m suddenly dealing with all sorts of mental stumbling blocks stemming from my new keyboard’s non-laptopness. I don’t know if I’m able to be creative using this keyboard! It’s not a novel-writing keyboard! It’s so noisy! The soundtrack to my thoughts spilling out is now the click-click-thunk of keys-keys-space bar. It feels wrong. It sounds wrong. I don’t know what to do.