I have a Kindle.

There are things that cannot be caged within the limits of geographic or racial boundaries. They are paths open to anyone whose heart beats for something more than simple inertia. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path


There is no jiu jitsu in this.



Thursday:

Form Of the Day: Dance Of Life

The antlered headdress is nearing completion. I enjoy arts and crafts, but this project has been difficult. Many expensive and time-consuming misadventures. I'm not thrilled with the way it turned out- it's not what I'd envisioned. I'm not sure if I should just go with it, scrap it and start over, or scrap it and give up.

One of the ER nurses came down last night to use my glucometer docking station, and saw all my fur and velcro and glue and sewing crapola spread all over. "Oh, what are you making?" "Errr....." I danced around for a while, but she was not letting me off the hook, and kept asking more questions.

If I'm absolutely cornered on such matters, I'll say that I'm "into some Native American stuff"- that doesn't tend to get the sort of recoil (or subsequent gossiping) that the P word often produces. At that point, it came out that she is somewhat familiar with the drum community- she has been to Flute Quest. So I invited her to Turtle Drum. ;)

Since I'm having to sew anyway, am taking this opportunity while my glue dries to detail my tactical scrub pants. What are tactical scrub pants, you ask? People who tend to carry around knives, guns, flashlights, cans of pepper spray, and other such goodies appreciate a nice cargo pant. I found some great cargo scrub pants with about a jillion pockets. I bought them in five different colors. All they need is a few stitches here and there to create a "pocket-within-a-pocket" so that my flashlight (on the left) and my pepper spray (on the right) remain upright and easy to grab. I hate it when the cylindrical paraphernalia in my pockets turn sideways. You have to readjust your pants before you can sit. The flashlight turns itself on, and burns batteries. If I needed to grab one of these items quickly, I'd have to fumble an extra moment to figure out which end was which. I like it when everything is exactly in place.

I'm hungry. And grumpy. But I'm being very good.
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Friday:
Cake in the break room. This Little Piggy Had None.
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Saturday:

I have a Kindle.

I confess this with mixed emotions. It has always been very important to me to not submit to being on an electronic tether. I only got a cell phone three years ago- and the only reason I succumbed to THAT was because my housemate cancelled the household landline in the middle of my hunt for a new job after being laid off. All of a sudden I figured out why no prospective employers were calling me back- because the phone number on my resume was disconnected. Getting a cell at that point was an emergency measure (after killing the housemate and hiding the body). I got (and still have) one of those no-frills ones that you have to load with minutes from cards bought at the supermarket. I do not carry it. I keep it in the car and check it every few days. I do not have an iphone, ipad, ipod, tablet, or any of those types of objects. I bought a used laptop last year just so that I could work on my book, and get on the internet when I was at the hospital overnight (they have Net Nanny on their wireless (doesn't that suck?), but it's a less restrictive version than is on the work computers).

One of my other housemates has some of the same literary tastes as I, as well as considerably more disposable income than I- thus I have fallen into the habit of letting him buy new releases of the authors we both like, and then I borrow the book from him when he is finished. When he got an e-reader, I was like, "Well, crap. Then you won't even be buying the new Wheel Of Time book, huh?" He- being a huge Geek, now has no fewer than FOUR e-readers. He loaned me one to read the Sanderson book on. I was hesitant but game. I like having a book in my hands, I don't like electronic gadgets, but I don't have twenty seven bucks burning a hole in my pocket for a hardcover new release.

Mixed reaction. Paging back through trying to find a reference from earlier in the story is a pain. Likewise, when I wanted to peek at the final chapter to see if so-and-so was really going to croak, that was a pain. I suspect this type of thing will be easier eventually when I learn how to navigate (I'm a slow learner with electronic gadgets; one of the reasons I don't care for them much). Having to plug it in to recharge was a pain- but the battery did last most of a work shift. (Another reason I don't like gadgets- having to keep track of how much juice everything has and remembering to keep constantly plugging shit in; and having batteries die all the time.) I could fit the device in my scrub top pocket (try that with the newest Wheel Of Time hardback- ha ha). I could also read it in bed. Reading in bed is a luxury that I have forgone in the last two years due to lighting difficulties.

Housemate bought me a Kindle Paperwhite. I would never have bought something like this for myself. (I did, however, use birthday money from my mom to buy a cover for it so that I would be less likely to break it).

I come from an era when dinosaurs roamed the earth and when you wanted something, you had to drive your car from store to store looking for it (and with a decent probability of never finding it for all your effort). We also paid for things with cash or personal checks. There was a visceral component to surrendering your hard-earned money. It took more effort.

Nowadays, you can get on the internet and find ANYTHING you want in minutes- even if it's on the other side of the planet. Internet shopping is great for being able to get exactly what you are looking for, but a Bad Thing for anyone with impulse control issues or an extremely limited budget. We buy with cards- or, in the case of online purchases, you don't even need that much. You can spend a hell of a lot of money in a hell of a short time without feeling like you really did it.

Now I can get a book in my hand (so to speak) in literally under a minute. I was somewhat disquieted to learn that I don't even need to buy the Kindle books on my desktop, and I don't even have to have the Infernal Device plugged into the computer *or* the wall- I can get a book in my hand in less than a minute from almost anywhere, with wireless. Gods help us. I feel like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice, when everything started to get out of control.

A colleague informed me last night that I can borrow some Kindle books from the library.

Also prominent in my mind is my upcoming annual PSG trip- which involves an all-day plane trudge each way, for which I normally purchase and pack half a duffle bag full of books. They take up a lot of room, and are heavy. Not so a Kindle. I also won't need to disturb my seatmates.... I always take a red-eye east, and always feel guilty when I turn the overhead light on to read while everybody else on the plane is trying to sleep.

I'm somewhat worried that a Kindle addiction will cause my already-agonizingly-slow work on my own WIP to grind to an utter halt. I read a little on the Kindle last night (I've bought one book on it so far), and then made myself work on my book for a few hours.