Here Comes the Bridal Shower

No Telling

I‘m supposed to be at a wedding shower in a few hours and forgot to buy a gift. Down South that’s a real faux pas. I’m sure they have the same rules of etiquette up North, but down here something like this can severely damage your reputation. Permanently. Social mistakes are somehow written indelibly on your DNA thereafter like a fow-pah tattoo.

“You know Monda over there? She teaches over at the college…writing or literature or…”
“Oh yes. She’s the one who showed up empty handed at that Bannister girl’s shower.”
“1988. That’s her. Here she comes…”

I can’t let that happen. Luckily, today’s brides register everywhere, even Wal-Mart although I find that practice too tacky to even acknowledge. Target is perfectly fine, Wal-Mart is NOT. You might as well put on the announcements that you’re registered for linen and china at The Dollar Store.

Or change your last name to Duggar. They registered for Gatorade and beef jerky at Wal-Mart.

In my mother’s generation, young brides registered for china and silver – real silver – and that was it. Girls in the ’50s expected to get four toasters and odd clocks. That changed a little for those of us Generation Jonesers. We made it more casual by registering for “everyday” dishes and flatware. While we sere more casual, we still had to sit through “tomato aspic” bridal showers thrown by our mothers’ women-friends. The rules were strict and the etiquette, unbendable. Legs crossed at the ankle and embossed thank you notes, that sort of thing.

These women are still around. In their golden years, all they do is go to church and rattle their pearlsls at showers. And they still scare me to death. Besides, these old gals remained married to their high school sweethearts while most of us Gen Jones brides made more than one trip to the altar.

Gen Y brides aren’t afraid of anybody. I love that about them. They register everywhere and run around with little electronic guns shooting a very specific gift list onto the internet. No worries about four toasters for these young women. They show up to their bridal showers in flip-flops and bring their men. Whoa. Maybe they learned something from our mistakes. I hope so.

Since I’ve procrastinated, I’m scouring this bride-to-be’s online gift registries and wondering what opens at 9:00 so I’m not socially banish-ed forever. It seems she’s signed up for everything but a perfect life. Bed Bath and Beyond probably doesn’t carry that, though.

Someone should.

No Pressure

No Telling

This Blog of Note business is mindboggling. Last night I watched my stats go astronomical, cheered, answered email, and celebrated with sushi from Kroger. Yeah, I’m a wild one.

This morning, still hung over with delight, I sat in front of the computer, opened a new empty post, and stared at it. For a long time. Damn. See, my blogging philosophy has always been to slam it out, sling it up, and clean up the typos later. I’m a one-draft blogger. In fact, the whole point of this blog was simply to get my butt in the chair and writing every day.

But now there are people actually reading it. I’m suddenly hyper audience-aware. If I’m casual, who will I offend? What do all these new friends want to read? Should I do a little research and see what they like best, tailoring topics to previous posts? I stared some more. Another cup of coffee. Checked my Ebay watchlist.

I teach writing for a living, and much of what I teach centers around this mantra I repeat about No Such Thing as Writer’s Block and Just Go Write Something. I can honestly say that this is the first time in recent memory that I’ve found myself stumped. Physician, heal thyself and all that.

So that’s what I’ll do. Just dive on in and slam it out and devil-may-care. If you find typos, be kind. I’ll fix them in a bit. If my politics/tomato snark/social networking cluelessness offends you, let me apologize right now and be forever done with it.

I’ll just keep scribbling like nobody’s watching. Kind of.

Calling All Typecasters!

Fresh Ribbon


Found this in the mail this morning:

Hi,

as you are a typecaster… and as I like typecasts… why not contribute to the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typecasting_%28blogging%29 ?
It would be a good thing as this article had been selected for deletion. I objected, but now it would need some brushing-up.

Please feel free to forward this to other “typecasters”.

greetings,
Georg

—
************************************
Georg Sommeregger, PhD

Scheduled for deletion! We can’t let that happen. Besides, it’s time we took a moment to define ourselves and link up. At the very least, everyone who typecasts should be listed under “External Links.”

Tick-tock, my friends.

Mystery Machine Reveal

Fresh Ribbon

Just had this dropped off at the house. No time for a real camera or a dusting off, nothing but cobwebs and cellphone pictures, baby. I had to beat the rain.

For those playing Guess That Machine along with us at home, the serial number of this Royal beauty is B-75795mumble. The mumble part is either a 4 or a very small A. If I were a betting woman, I’d call it an A, although the size of the letter/number appears to be much smaller than the others and in a different strike-font. According to The Typewriter Serial Number Database, that means it’s either a 1937 Aristocrat (maybe that’s what the A is for) or a 1937 Royal Speed King. You tell me.

Here’s the thing – the case is nearly perfect and the roller is brand new. Spongy, actually. The S-key stuck a little, but after typing a bit, it loosened up. Bouncy. And she types a delicate elite – hard to tell from my hasty scan. Since the typebars are also free of ink and the ribbon appears to be at the beginning, it’s a good assumption that perhaps once upon a time this sweet Royal Whatever was sold or serviced and put in a closet forever. Or until last week. Nothing about this typewriter shows any use. Seriously, all I’m looking at here is a little dust and a few cobwebs. The more I type, by the way, the darker the ink gets.

If so, I certainly know who serviced and sold it. Russellville is about 45 minutes from here, a sleepy college town where the “Wonder Boys” learned agri-science at Arkansas Polytechnic (now Arkansas Tech).

Three years after this typewriter was manufactured, December 1940, one in four of their male students was called up for duty with the 206th Coast Artillery. Life Magazine even did a pictorial about their going-away party. Bless their hearts, those Arkansas Tech boys were sent to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The story of the voyage alone is worth the read.

Now, I don’t have anything whatsoever in or on this typewriter case that tells me some Ozark mountain boy had to leave it behind to serve in WWII. I do know that in those years and in that place higher education was an expensive rarity for most, and a new typewriter even more so. Few others living in Russellville, Arkansas would have need for a typewriter at all, let alone a portable.

The handful of girls who went to college at all would’ve gone down the road to Arkansas State Teachers’ College (now UCA, where I hold forth), but only if they were terribly rich or quite plain. That’s the way it was. This is not a woman’s typewriter. While it would have been well cared-for, it would’ve been used.

If you listen very closely, you can hear me making up the story.

Memphis Road Trip Mystery Machine

Fresh Ribbon

typecast 8-9-09

While you’re thinking this one over (queue Jeopardy music) take a look at a little site I just ran across today. Mymymymy…Poetic Typewriters. The typewriters are expensive, but gorgeous. The layout on this site is to die for.

Pulled out ole Mamie the unflappable SC Silent for this typecast. Bless her heart. She still types like a dream, but not when a girl has elegantly long vacation nails. Those round keys do a number on a manicure.

A Blight on Your House

No Telling
(Dante’s Tomatoes by Dore’, with a little help from me)

Or on your tomatoes, thanks to “Southern growers” and according to The New York Times. I was alerted to the tomato pandemic via a bit in the Arkansas Times, and while there are no fingers specifically pointing Arkansasward, we know who they mean.

We’ve unwittingly contributed to the disaster by shipping plants to unsuspecting northern farmers who, if you can believe such rumors, actually grow tomatoes for sale. Why anyone would want a tomato grown in outdoor temperatures of less than 105 degrees is beyond me. That’s like importing watermelons from Canada. Ridiculous.

I guess we know how to get even, though. The NY Times says,

“According to plant pathologists, this killer round of blight began with a widespread infiltration of the disease in tomato starter plants. Large retailers like Home Depot, Kmart, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart bought starter plants from industrial breeding operations in the South and distributed them throughout the Northeast. (Fungal spores, which can travel up to 40 miles, may also have been dispersed in transit.) Once those infected starter plants arrived at the stores, they were purchased and planted, transferring their pathogens like tiny Trojan horses into backyard and community gardens.”

I can envision thousands those baby Arkansas plants flinging killer spores like confetti-tears all the way to New Jersey. Sounds more like a pitiful cry for help. Remember Hansel and Gretel and those breadcrumbs? Exactly.

(Titans Recoil by Dore’ and Monda)

So does this leave us tomatoless down here? Hmmm….

“So what’s going on here? Plant physiologists use the term “disease triangle” to describe the conditions necessary for a disease outbreak. You need the pathogen to be present (that’s the late blight), you need a host (in this case tomatoes and potatoes) and you need a favorable environment for the disease — for late blight that’s lots of rain, moderate temperatures and high humidity.”

The emphasis is mine. Clearly, if God meant for tomatoes to flourish in places like Vermont she would’ve turned up the heat considerably. In fact, I suspect this may be God’s way of telling those folks to grow Brussels sprouts instead.

There’s talk that we might have a shortage down here, but barring some apocalyptic meteor-disaster climate change or salmonella outbreak, anyone living in Arkansas could reasonably put in a few plants right now and harvest tomatoes clear through Halloween. How’s that for trick or treat?

Say it Ain’t So, Twitter

No Telling

Millions of people clicking feverishly on their Iphones. The panic, the frustration, the rock-bottom realization that they were all disconnected. That’s an exi-twitter-stential moment, folks. Lives hung in the balance as the masses frantically clicked and reclicked.

I learned about the TwitterCaust on CNN this morning. Breaking News! Twitter. Is. Down!

So I sat there with my coffee and tried very hard to hear the collective wailing and gnashing of teeth. I imagined all sorts of world-wide panic and and falling stock prices and declarations of war. Seriously, how long would Twitter be down before we began hearing the thundering hooves of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Then I made another cup of coffee.

Look, I’m not a complete geezer. I’ve got a Twitter account and I post to it when I remember. Sometimes I forget, although it doesn’t really matter. My tweets are unremarkable and I don’t post via cell phone because it’s too much trouble. I do realize Twitter’s important to many people. Yadda, yadda.

The thing is, I signed on after the scare was over and found that all anyone wanted to tweet about was…well, that Twitter was down this morning. Twittering about Twitter seems a little pointless. I’m thinking maybe it’s time we all rediscovered our walking-around lives, our priorities, our inner monologues. Something.

(Note: I’m tweeting a link to this. Full circle, darlin’, full circle.)

Step Right Up

No Telling

The First Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper is on and there’s much to see. Anyone who’s addicted to writing tools and paper needs to stop by to take a gander at the notebook and pen reviews, as well as pieces on paper obsession. Love this!

Not familiar with a blog carnival? Step on over to Notebook Stories and take a look at the submission requirements. Next month’s carnival is hosted by The Pen Addict, so scribble a little something and use this submission form to enter your post.

A couple of ditties of mine – this one and this one – made it onto the midway, so get your post on and enter September’s Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper.

Deadline: Sunday, September 6 at 5:00 pm.

It\’s Carnival Time, Y\’all

Uncategorized


This blog carnival thing is fun. It\’s especially nice to know there are other notebook/paper/pen obsessives out there. Take a walk through Notebook Stories\’ list of scribblers in this month\’s Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper – better than a midway and no carnies. Our friend Strikethru is there, and she\’s also the Notebook Addict of the Week. There should be a tiara involved, but maybe that\’s just how we do it down South. I\’ve got a post or two in there as well. Thanks, Notebook Stories!

There\’s another Carnival of Pen, Paper and Pencil next month hosted by The Pen Addict. Visit the submission guidelines and go write something. The next deadline is September 6th so there\’s plenty of time

So…where\’s the typecast carnival?