A Man Alone Deep In The Forest...

Thursday my friend Wes called and took me out for breakfast at Dave’s. Our conversational topics ranged from metallurgy in Bible times to questionable sources cited in the Wescott & Hort Greek text.

Wes know about such stuff.

I just listen.

I can’t tell Wescott & Hort from Ben & Jerry’s.

From such esoteric quasi religious subjects we soon got to talking about Hurricane Rita and our families; before long, we got to telling ribald jokes so terrible sailors would cover their ears.

I haven’t laughed so hard in ages. It was great fun, very refreshing.

After Wes left, and while I waited to hear from Donald —At his work he’s installing a linux cluster computer system which carries out 32 Billion operations every second! —

While I waited to hear from Donald about the Glog manuscript, I began structuring a new book.

Unfortunately, I’d written this one on a dedicated word processor. Transferring the text to a computer presents all sorts of technical problems. For instance, even when I Save-As a text-only document, the files come into Word with a paragraph mark at the end of each and every line on every page.

I tried this and that and the other to remedy this, but then the text appeared without a single paragraph mark, indentation or break in 136 pages!

Back to the drawing board.

Again I tried various remedies but in the end I just sat at my keyboard deleting 863 paragraph marks —one at a time.

Computers are wonderful, efficient, labor-saving, devices which free the user from boring clerical tasks and thus inspire creativity.

Other people’s computers, that is.

I felt more creative back in the days when I wrote all my manuscripts long hand with pencil on yellow legal pads.

A neighbor talked with me about a developing squabble among people in our area. I’m not involved but she wants me to play the role of peacemaker. I would need to take another two days a month from my own work to do some physical stuff for the benefit of the community. Writers don’t actually work, you know; they have all sorts of free time.

I’ll think about it.

Ginny came home from work feeling down in the dumps. I don’t know if it’s a matter of her blood sugar being low or if it’s something I’ve done — or haven’t done.

Ah, the mystery of woman.

How does that old saw go:

If a man standing alone deep in the forest says anything, but there’s no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?