making books personal The outside world: moi? politics publishing the auntie mame files the boy the wife words
by Harry Connolly
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Friday quick notes
1) I’m taking the family to see Steven Tobolowski live on our local NPR affiliate this morning. Exciting! My son loves his show (my son loves oral storytelling) and we can’t wait to see how it goes. And I don’t think I have to say that I’m also a big fan of Steve Scher, the interviewer.
2) I get a lot of people asking me about the status of the Twenty Palaces books, so I’m going to say: Please stop. I’m waiting to hear something official from my editor at Del Rey, but I’m not going to announce anything until I get the final word from them.
Believe me, when I finally hear, the first person I share the news with will be my wife. The second person will be the whole rest of the world. But it’s a stressful time right now, so please don’t keep prodding me. When I know, you’ll know, believe me.
3) After years of hearing about other writers receiving anthology invitations, I’ve started getting some of my own. The only one I’m sure I’m allowed to talk about is a book related to Evil Hat’s Don’t Rest Your Head rpg, which is being edited by Chuck Wendig. And I have a nasty little story idea in mind…
4) I sent a revised copy of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark to my agent. New book! Hopefully soon.
5) I’ve been planning a large politics post for quite a while, and hearing that the U.S. government just killed a U.S. citizen without due process is prodding me to get around to it. Watch (or avoid) this space.
personal The outside world: i look bad internet moi? the boy the wife
by Harry Connolly
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Overdoing and Underdoing.
So I’ve been doing the Livestrong calorie/fitness counter and it’s been fine so far. I get a little hungry but nothing that makes me want to yell at my kid or whatever.
But yesterday got a little nuts. We made a run to the Staples, the boy and I, for various supplies (note to my agent if you’re reading this: yes, we bought a new phone), walking a mile and a half to get there.
After lunch, my wife came home from work early and we went to the local park. We hiked to the beach, then hiked back, over an hour and a half, which is a long way considering our various problems with our legs. We hopped over to the bus stop, all sweaty and exhausted, to wait for our ride home.
Except the driver picked us up, took us one stop, and told us he was taking a 30-minute break. We could take another bus if we wanted at this next stop, but since we weren’t going downtown that was worth fuck-all to us. We had no choice but to wait until 9pm for the bus or walk all the way home.
Let’s just say that I arrived home and realized my calorie intake was a negative number for the day. Not just below my goal: below zero.
“Oh my god,” I said to my wife. “I can eat anything I want.”
Mmm, grilled cheese sandwich with mayo and hot peppers. (840 calories)
Anyway, today will be a recovery day.
In unrelated news to my physical health but closely related to my mental health, I’m going to start an internet fast on Sat the 10th of September.
That’s right. I’ll be logging off and staying off.
I will check my emails once a day. I won’t be blogging, or reading my LJ friends list, or posting earworms on Facebook, or goofing around on Twitter. I’ll check email and allow my dropbox files to do their thing, then I’ll turn off my modem.
It’ll be a useful way to re-examine my internet habits (the way I used to when I did actual food-type fasts) and hopefully up my productivity. It’d be nice to have a little extra family time, too.
Anyway, I’m going offline to run some errands. Don’t forget there’s a Twenty Palaces spoiler thread to check out.
making books personal The outside world: beautiful comics i look bad internet man bites world moi? the auntie mame files the wife
by Harry Connolly
10 comments
Quick Friday post
1. I have promised a thread for spoilery discussions of the Twenty Palaces books. I have not forgotten this promise.
2. Today is the day I travel around Seattle (by bus!) signing book stock in stores. Fun! Okay, not. Actually, it’ll be a good time to do some reading and thinking about item 3.
3. My agent got back to me with some notes about A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark. They seem very straightforward but will require a bit of fixing to address. Must turn on brain.
4. My agent has also shamed me into replacing my phone. Let us not speak of this further.
5. The Livestrong calorie counter is making me rethink my devotion to kielbasa and peanut butter.
6. Booster Gold is a terrific character.
7. My email inbox has been exploding for weeks. I’m not sure what to do about it, but I have to do something.
8. Last night was date night for my wife and me. Unfortunately, our sitter never showed (don’t know why) so we ended up cooking some quick, sorta-crappy food and then rushing out to Elliott Bay Marina to see “Cirque du Sail” a couple who travel around the world on their sailboat, with their kids, and pay their way by doing acrobatic shows in the rigging for donations. Last night was the final Seattle show but they’ll be in San Francisco in a few days. They’re very good. Check it out if you can.
9. One the way to the Marina last night, my wife turned to me and said “Thanks for coming to see this thing with me.” I said: “Hey, it’s Date Night! We just had bad food and now we’re going to see some unlikely entertainment. The only difference is that we’re dragging the boy behind us in a little red wagon.” Date night, everybody.
10. Time to get out of here and start signing. Have a great holiday weekend, Holiday Weekend People.
“That’s the end?”
That was my wife and son’s reaction when I read the final line of The Hobbit to them last night. (It was this edition, so we had to stop often to admire the artwork–although I can’t say I was fond of the way the elves were portrayed.)
As family reading time goes, this was a long one, or maybe it just seemed long because I was the only one reading it. Usually we trade chapters between the three of us, but there was no way I was going to ask my dyslexic wife to read all those dwarf names over and over. That would have been hell for her. And since my son is not enthusiastic about reading aloud at the best of times, I gladly took on the task myself.
The only problem: we were watching DVD previews of… something last week (not a good sign, eh?) and the LOTR blue ray was one of them my son was startled to hear Elijah Wood say the name “Gandalf.”
“Didn’t you know?” I said. “The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are set in the same world. They’re connected.”
“Oh. Let’s read those next.”
And my heart sank. I’m happy that he’s (finally) warming up to fantasy, but there’s no way I can ask my wife to read LOTR aloud, so all the books would be on me and me alone.
Not only that, but much of Fellowship… is freaking dire. I’m sorry; I know there are people out there who lurve the books so much they read them every year or whatever, but too much of the early travel stuff is just tedious. And Bilbo’s birthday party takes forever to get to.
I’m tempted to break the family rule and skip the books in favor of the movies.
DATE NIGHT!
My wife and I strolled through Ballard, visited the fish ladder at the locks (where we saw quite a few salmon–the run is still going strong), then had dinner. Pulled pork pizza with butternut squash, apples, pancetta, and garlic ftw. Thank you, Ballard Firehouse.
And Pikachu help me but my legs hurt, I’m covered with dried sweat and I can barely keep my eyes open. Bed! Tomorrow is for writing.
Well, this is disappointing.
Thanks to a link on Twitter, I stumbled across a tech article about a font especially designed to be easily read by dyslexics. It’s called Dyslexie, and while it’s not what you’d call pretty, it is very, very functional.
As some of you might remember, my wife is pretty severely dyslexic. When I showed her the article (and the video, which is pretty interesting in its own right) she thought it was astonishing. It really did make reading much easier for her.
Of course I wanted to get it for her, so I could make it the default font on her iPad. Here’s the problem: according to what I can find, the font is only available to universities, institutions, and other large groups but not individuals. And it costs around 450 Euros. That’s out of our reach.
Hey, the guy created it and gets to market it however he likes. I’m not going to yank it off some torrent site. But if the only dyslexics who can benefit from it are the ones at rich schools? That sucks.
Today is our neighborhood festival
There’s a huge slide set up around the corner and ponies are eating the grass of the baseball field. The art exhibit and other stalls are all set up, and there’s a beer garden, too. Bounce houses? didn’t see them on my way over but I can’t imagine they won’t be set up later.
I know my wife and son will be dropping by later to have their fun. I hope I can still be here to meet them.
making books personal: food reasons i suck the auntie mame files the boy the wife
by Harry Connolly
6 comments
Birthday Gift Report!
So Friday was my birthday. I woke up at my usual 5am work time and did my pages. What’s more, I added even more cool stuff to the end of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark–it sounds self-serving to say this, I know, but I’m getting really excited about this book (and I can’t wait to be done with it and move on to a new thing).
What did I find when I arrived home? A giant gift-wrapped box on my dining room table. My son, naturally, was super-excited to have me open it, but I was exhausted from several long days and begged a nap (gift one).
After we had our fruit salad and I did the whole wish/candle thing, I tore it open. It turned out to be a George Foreman Grill (gift two).
Now, I’m skeptical of electric cooking appliances. I use our food processor and stand mixer all the time, but specific gadgets for cooking? Too fussy, too messy, too much trouble to take out and put away. Especially that last one. I use the crock pot about once a week, and even though it’s fine for the first two, it’s a pain in the ass for third. We just don’t have that much counter space or storage.
But this gadget? The cooking plates come out and fit in the dishwasher, it has no controls beyond an on/off switch, and it folds up pretty compactly.
What’s more, my wife had picked out a beautiful steak for me to have for dinner (gift three) and it cooked up beautifully. I can’t wait to try potatoes, asparagus, and (naturally) burgers in it. My son is eager to put a personal pizza in it, and I’m game for that.
One other birthday gift turned up at the end of the night. Google Alerts brought me this: Publishers Weekly gave Circle of Enemies a starred review. (gift four) That means I’m 3 for 3 for PW reviews. :) I’m seriously pleased about this.
Anyway, I’m back to making donuts. At this point, it’s a sprint to the end of the draft. I just wish it wasn’t so damn gorgeous outside, which is like a gift I can’t play with. Local temp for July 2nd: 78F. Sunday the second is expected to be ten degrees cooler.
personal: food life is great! moi? publishing the boy the wife
by Harry Connolly
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I am in New York
Actually I’m in a Starbucks on the upper west side, near the American Museum of Natural History. My wife and son are meeting me here and then we’re going to see some dinosaur bones and maybe some of the guys who hassled Ben Stiller that time. Starbucks! Ubiquitous meeting place of the phoneless.
We’ve been here less than 24 hours and already my son is asking about rent in the city. I think it’s safe to say that he likes it, although it requires a little more walking than he’s used to.
My wife is absolutely stunned by how clean and nice the city is. We’re staying downtown, where her old stomping grounds were, and she just keeps saying “It’s changed so much! My god, I’m old aren’t I?”
Me, I just had lunch with my agent at (checks card) the dici–a place that loves big knives and lower case letters. My food was really good, even though the humidity took the edge off my appetite. But omg rare beef with sweet peppers! I’m happy. We talked about a lot of interesting things and I have a ton of thinking to do. More on that later, maybe.
Still haven’t had pizza yet. (See first paragraph about >24 hours) There’s a little place near our hotel that looks like it would be nice to try, so we can sample some Real New York Pizza(tm). What’s the name of it? Sbarro’s, I think. Can’t wait!
(Just kidding, New Yorkers, I swear. I know Sbarro’s is airport pizza.)
Anyway, this morning we did the tourist thing and went to the top of the Empire State Building. It was a challenge for my wife to have been a New Yorker for so many years and now play tourist (and that place is highly concentrated tourist time) but I eased her through the experience by exclaiming things like “So many tall buildings!” and “The trains run under the ground!” and other things sure to make locals think we’re cool.
We’ve ridden the subway several times; as I’ve told my son, the sights and sounds are soooo recognizable from a million movies and TV shows. Just about anyone in the developed world knows the NY Subway sound. That weird metallic EEEeeeEEEeeEEEEE! we always hear.
My family has joined us, so I’m logging off. Hope you guys are enjoying your week.
Dear Everyone Who Recommended The Game “Dominion”
Thank you, you beautiful fucking geniuses. Honestly, Dominion is a blast, and my board-game-loving wife was pleased as hell when we played it. She was a little uncertain when she unwrapped it, but it took no time at all for us to be having a blast.
Thanks for helping to make her birthday extra awesome.
personal The outside world: beautiful the boy the wife
by Harry Connolly
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Date Night Asks Difficult Questions About Art And Mothering
Last Thursday was Date Night for my wife and me. It was also First Thursday. That meant we spent our evening looking at Art.
But first, we took the boy to the zoo. Here’s a picture of a wolf:
There are more pics at the set, all taken with my aggressively mediocre point-n-click camera, but you can see the dinosaur exhibit and also a back-alley mural showing gelflings and skeksis from THE DARK CRYSTAL. (Oh, Seattle)
Anyway, we had our date-night dinner at home for once, then caught the bus to the galleries in Pioneer Square. It was disappointing. All of it. I saw so much that was simply dull or uninspiring, or else it looked just like stuff I’d seen before. I mean, I’m sure there’s a buyer out there for landscapes in the Hudson River School, but it doesn’t tweak my interest in the slightest.
As I told my wife, it was disappointing, but I was willing to be disappointed every month for the chance to see something amazing.
From there, we headed up to the SAM. They had a huge party going on for First Thursday and their exhibits of Nick Cave’s Soundsuits.
Now, I thought the Soundsuits were amazing. Seriously. I loved them and found most (but not all) really affecting. There were one or two that made me want to commit narrative on them, but I didn’t feel up to it, creatively. Whatever I could do with them, it would have felt inadequate.
Have I mentioned that my wife went to several different art schools, including the Cooper Union, and that she studied fashion design, too? She responded to my “This is the real stuff” comments with a chilly “What makes you think so?”
From there, we had a discussion of art, of what makes the art community ignore one thing but praise something similar, and of originality. She told me her art teacher back in the 80′s was doing whole suits made of buttons (as some of the Soundsuits are) but that it was dismissed as women’s art. What made this acceptable? Because it was combined with the dance/movement aspect? Because it was made by a man?
Part of the appeal for me was that, according to our guide, the work was specifically without a political or cultural “message,” which several years of First Thursdays have shown me are difficult to pull off well. Interestingly, the young woman giving us a tour couldn’t resist including an anti-consumerist moral to the end of the tour, which spoiled an otherwise good job.
Another part of the appeal was the extraordinary detail of the work done. This led to another difficult discussion, mainly surrounding time, assistants, assistance, and the number of hours we all waste on day-to-day duties. We’ve had this conversation before: My wife is an artist, but she’s also a massage practitioner, a mother, an athlete… there are many demands on her time and interests. What’s more, she’s good at all those things. She loves doing all those things, and despite numerous efforts to arrange our lives so she had time for all those things as well as making art, we can never make it work.
What it comes down to is this: the only way to really make her art schedule work with the life we have would be to send our son back to school, and she doesn’t want to do that. I don’t think she’s all that excited about jumping into the local art scene, either.
I think she’s making peace right now with her choices, and acknowledging that the things making her happy are worthwhile, valuable things, while also acknowledging that things may change again in a few years. But she’s doing what every decent parent does: she’s putting her child’s needs above her own.
Mother’s Day can be a difficult day for a lot of people. Not every mother is a loving one, and there are way too many people who have little reason to love their mothers.
But my wife isn’t one of them. She’s given up a lot for her child, and while this life makes her happy, it’s still a sacrifice. Happy Mothers Day to her and everyone like her.
I forgot to post this for Easter
We aren’t Christians around here, but my wife has certain cultural traditions around the holiday that she doesn’t like to give up. Yeah, she stopped making Pasca because I didn’t like it (clove bread, yug), but no matter how crazy things are, she still steals time to sit down and do at least one of these:
I looks even nicer in real life.
Bedbugs in NYC
How bad is the bedbug infestation in New York City at the moment? We’re trying to plan a 4-day trip to Manhattan for the summer (after watching the Ric Burns documentary, my son is anxious for the trip) but only for a few days. We’re looking at the Cosmopolitan Hotel for our stay, but I need to be able to tell the fam something reassuring about being bitten in our sleep.
Also, other hotel options would be welcome.
That last hypothetical? That one stung a little
Maybe it’s completely dorky of me, but I haven’t replied to any of the responses to my question about the magic jewel that would change your personality because frankly, I found it to be a little upsetting. Okay, that’s absolutely a dorky thing, but while it seemed interesting however many weeks ago I wrote it and scheduled it, when I started seeing responses (blog, LiveJournal) I got these weird… I don’t know… pangs.
I, too, would like to never forget anything I don’t want to forget! (my poor wife). I would also like to eat only when I’m hungry. I hate my own procrastination so much. That led to other things that weren’t mentioned in comments, like being wildly bored by exercise and cleaning. And so on. It was like a sudden tide of self-recrimination–which is usually fine for me, but I really wasn’t expecting it.
So of course I went to my wife. If I’m going to consider changing one major aspect of my personality, I’m going to check in with her. She may, er, have her own ideas about things I should change.
After joking that it was so hard to choose just one (har har) she settled on an umbrella change that she thought would address most of them: being disorganized. She’d want me to be more organized, not just about my living space or my cooking, but also with my time (and apartment clutter, too, I’m sure). I’m not sure how to phrase that in the context of the hypothetical, but there you go.
I think I’m going to leave self-improvement out of these for a while.
Today
Today, while I worked, my wife and son rode their bikes more than fifty miles. They’re about to collapse into sleep, while I’m feeling restless. I want to work more on my book, but I know I should go to sleep.
Just thinking about it gives me a weird feeling I can’t quite articulate.
making books personal: food harvest of fire i look bad life is great! man bites world progress reasons i suck the boy the wife
by Harry Connolly
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Five Things Make a Friday Post
1) Quick question: Should I do another August book giveaway to promote Circle of Enemies? I’m not sure it did me any good last time, as far as drawing in new readers, but it was nice to give away cool stuff.
2) My wife and son are spending the day on their bikes, riding the Burke-Gilman trail as far as they can go. That means that, instead of spending the day writing at a Starbucks and the library, I’m going to work at home, sans interruptions. Kitchen floor: swept.
3) What have I been working on? I should be able to let you know very soon.
4) Taxes are nearly done. At this point it’s about printing them, e-filing and transferring the money to the correct account. Also, I was a complete idiot about them this year. Here’s why: I’d been stressing over the bill. Now, we had the money in savings, but I was stressing over it because it would cut quite deeply into our cushion. It was only last night, late, that I remembered that I had a CD with no early-withdrawal penalties set aside specifically for taxes–and it has triple what I need to cover the bill. Phew!
5) I’m not gluten-free anymore. I did lose a little weight, but it was mainly because we didn’t have food available when I was hungry. Me with low blood sugar? Not a good husband. Not a good parent. Besides, it’s unsustainable and unhealthy. Also, it didn’t stop the allergic reactions on my face. (This is an FYI: no diet advice, please.)
making books personal: i look bad mac love man bites world progress publishing the wife
by Harry Connolly
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Quick post
I’m about to get back to revising The Unnamed Project but I thought I’d drop in here for a quick post.
I have great news! … which I can’t share yet. Yes, I know, I’ve become one of those tiresome writers who talks about all the awesome things they’re not allowed to talk about. This one won’t be too much delayed in announcing; the contracts should be all signed and ready very soon now.
Gluten-Free! For the first few days I was doing pretty well (and dropping a few pounds) but fell off the wagon. I put the pounds back on and my face is inflamed again. Annoying. I also tried out a few of the apps folks recommended but they were unsuitable for one reason or another.
I tried the free version of the Livestrong app, for example, but apparently there’s no way to put a food into it at quantities smaller than their minimum serving size. Apparently, everyone who has maple syrup eats a quarter cup of it at one go; no one ever just adds a tablespoon to their yogurt. It’s also annoying and I’m not sure if the paid version fixes this flaw.
Galleys for Circle of Enemies! are done. I’m going to make copies of them and then ship they back to Del Rey later this week. There are sections I wish I could iron out–not too many, but some–but I still think this book is the best I’ve ever written.
Science Fiction Conventions! I’m going to one. Norwescon, in this case. I bought a membership over the weekend because I figured I’m supposed to be going to Readercon later this summer and even (gulp!) be on a panel or something, so I should probably go to one as an audience member to see what they look like. I realize they’re not the same sort of convention, but what the hell. I have until the end of April to remember where I left my extrovert mask.
iPad! Finally, a gadget my wife will actually use.
Ebooks for 99 cents! Boy has this been bouncing around the internet for a while. Personally, I’m sure the price of ebooks will drop below the current prices, but I’m not so sure they’ll fall all the way to 99 cents. This indie author has an interesting take on book pricing, mainly because she isn’t interested in the 99 cent market. She doesn’t believe those readers will follow her to other, higher-priced books, and also that they’re kind of a pain in the ass.
Combine that with some other readers out there who say they avoid one buck books because they assume they’re crap, and you see a case for higher prices. It’s pretty interesting and things are changing quickly.
Christ, didn’t I say this was supposed to be quick? Time to work.
personal The outside world: food i look bad life is great! mac love reasons i suck the boy the wife
by Harry Connolly
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Writing tech, tax tech, belly tech
The new iPad has had unexpected benefits: In landscape orientation, the keyboard is a good size for my son’s hands and he spent much of last night writing a story. The software eased some of his usual anxieties about writing anything–mainly spelling and penmanship–and he completed over a thousand words of an absurd story called “The Tooth Fairy.” It also helps me see what we need to work on in his schooling. I thought he had quotation marks down, but no.
It’s (past) time to do our taxes and this year I got a recommendation from a successful local writer for an accountant she uses. There are three main problems: One is that it looks like I’d be filling out forms for him that are like Turbo Tax forms which he, presumably, will then enter into his own version of tax software. Assuming we’ve been doing our taxes correctly (more on that later) this seems like paying for data entry–is there any real benefit to using a professional? Two is that they don’t quote a specific rate. This is what they say:
Tax return preparation fees are based on a per form fee or an hourly rate schedule; whichever is most appropriate, on a client by client basis. Hourly rates vary depending on the staff member performing the work and the complexity of the work itself. In addition, direct expenses may be charged when applicable.
That’s as specific as it gets. We didn’t earn all that much last year, so I have no idea what they’ll actually charge us, but it’s likely that we can’t afford it. Third is that my wife thinks problems one and two are bullshit and we might as well Turbo Tax again this year.
Me, I’d hoped to uncover some extra deductions and go over quarterly taxes with him. See, I don’t do quarterly taxes, preferring to take the relatively minor penalty (about a hundred bucks) to avoid all that estimating and paying early. That should probably change, though. Does Turbo Tax even do that for me? It’s not like I have a lot of money coming to me this year beyond the on-publication payment for Circle of Enemies–I need to sell another book or two, and I have no idea if that’s even going to happen.
Sigh. It looks like another year of Turbo Taxing, unless someone has better advice
Exactly one week ago I had an egg sandwich for breakfast… and I immediately started sneezing and my nose started running like crazy. When I told my wife, she gave me a finger-wagging and blamed it on wheat gluten.
She’d seen a nutritionist two weeks earlier and came home to tell me we were going to be giving up wheat flour. She’s done it, too. Her body shed ten pounds very quickly and the weird red, rough skin… thing that’s been troubling both our faces for a long while immediately cleared up for her. Now she’s making scary noises about giving up wheat for good.
The sketchy thing is that her nutritionist has told her that the gluten clogs the spaces between the villi in your intestine. Me, I’m doubtful about that, but the results are there even if I’m doubtful about the mechanism.
I couldn’t join in right away, because I’d just gone grocery shopping and I wasn’t about to throw out all that damn bread. Still, the last shop was pretty much wheat-free and it’s time for me to join in. And I will. With luck, my face won’t be red and inflamed, and I’ll drop some of this extra weight. Weighing less will hopefully mean less pain and therefore more exercise. Current goal: live long enough to see my son graduate from college.
Anyway, the iPad is going to be recruited to this effort–I just need to find a good calorie counter/wellness app to download. (Suggestions more than welcome–accuracy and ease of use are my top considerations). The thing about giving up wheat is that I’m hungry all the time. I can eat a big bowl of curried rice, veg, and chicken but it will never be as satisfying at the same amount of pasta. I don’t mind being hungry–I’ve done some pretty severe fasts in my time–but it’s important for my wife to know she’s getting all the calories she needs, even if they’re more complex than they used to be.
So… any thoughts on going gluten-free? Any iPad wellness apps to recommend? What about those writerly tax problems? (No advice on the boy and his story, please; it’s still too new.)
Thanks.
personal The outside world: mac hate people politics the boy the wife
by Harry Connolly
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I feel dumb posting about my own life…
When things are so awful in Japan. There’s not much I have to say on the subject, since I’ve had Mac Freedom on most of the day and have missed much of the news. Still, if you want to do something to help, check this out.
—-
Is anyone even remotely surprised that James O’Keefe’s gotcha video that caused the firing of an NPR fundraiser and the forced resignation of their CEO was in fact dishonestly edited to be a hit piece? No? Of course not. That’s what this guy does.
Credit where it’s due: it was Glenn Beck’s people who did the investigating. Good work, folks.
—-
Finally, personal stuff. Guess who just failed her saving throw against The Shiny? My wife. We bought an iPad for her yesterday.
Most of the people reading this won’t know her and won’t know how honestly astounding this is. She has no patience or interest in online digital culture (beyond a few basic things like TED Talks and emails from friends). She doesn’t like the way computers operate–she’s always asking where is this and where is that, how do you…Nothing is ever straightforward enough for her.
Also, she’s severely dyslexic and dysgraphic–reading is a slow process and writing legibly can be very stressful. This means that, except for a couple areas of personal expertise, she has a way of talking around the things she wants done and can be vague at times, relying on the listener to interpret what she wants. Computers don’t do that, of course. You can’t tell it to put the thing away and you can’t mix up one word for another. You have to accommodate it, not the other way around. And her eyesight, never very good (like you’re surprised?), is getting worse.
But she liked the iPad. It’s portable for in the home, the fonts can be set quite large and the screen can be made white text on black. Also, it turns out the ereader features were less interesting to her than the idea that she could take all of her addresses and phone numbers off the random scraps of paper they’re on and save them for herself.
What’s more, some of the apps are tempting as hell. I’m buying Sketchbook Pro for her soon and Animation Creator HD, too. The hard thing will be to keep the boy from loading it up with games he wants to play. He’s already pressing me to buy Fruit Ninjas or whatever that is (and I confess that I spent much of the time in the store playing Angry Birds and Cut The Rope).
Anyway, this will give me a reason to use iTunes now, which I’ve been avoiding like crazy, since the iPad has no file structure. We’ll see how it goes.
personal reading: reasons i suck the boy the wife words
by Harry Connolly
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I’m not going to be around much today
The family is heading out to the Apple store and Barnes & Noble so my technophobic wife can test drive some ereaders. She won’t like them, I already know it, but what the hell, right? I get to check them out, too. What I really suspect will happen is that my son will fall in love the the iPad and want one for himself, and that’ll get him off my damn computer every day.
Frankly, we’re more likely to come home with a bag of books than a gadget.
(And yeah, I though the iPad 2 was going to drop yesterday, not tomorrow. My wife doesn’t care about size, cameras or gyroscopes, though–she plans to be disappointed by it no matter what.)
Update: My son tells us that we will also be visiting The Gap so he can buy some new Tshirts.
Me: “All right, son. If you want to, we’ll take a look. Is this about a girl? It’s totally cool if it is.”
Son: “No. I just don’t want to look ramshackle.”
Me: “God dammit! If you’re going to be a member of this family, you’re going to look ramshackle!”
Followed by much laughing. Considering the glasses frames he chose (kinda fancy), the shoes he likes and the pants he asks his mom to make, it’s pretty clear that he’s going to be a dress-up person. It’s like Alex Keaton being born to hippie parents.
