POSTCARD FROM THE ABBEY

I can hardly keep my eyes open.  Don't you just hate that feeling?  All day long, I wanted to put my head down on a table and close my eyes.  Now I'm writing this blog to keep myself awake until I have to rally and get up and go out to dinner with family.  Not a hardship at all, my favorite steak place.   

Sleep has not been my friend lately.  Four hours at one time is about my max but certainly not my optimum.  I try not to get up out of bed but after awhile I think a glass of milk would help.  Sometimes I'm hot and thirsty and craving a Coke at 3 a.m.  But not very often.  A couple of swigs can hit the spot.

This very early morning my eyelids opened before 2 a.m.  Tiptoeing into the kitchen, I turned on my middle of the night lights and grabbed a glass of water.  I sat down in my chair, wide awake.   The dog wouldn't even recognize my presence.  I picked up a piece of stitching lying on my ottoman.  I love to cross-stitch and started this new piece last week.  Recently, Cate said, "Your stitching is probably missing you" because of all my writing these days.  I worked a few stitches on my linen and stopped. 

Then I spied my Nook HD, a very indulgent, improper gift for an English Major to purchase for herself.  Books, books, books has been my rallying cry for years.  I would put my fingers in my ears and start singing Tea for Two whenever anyone tried to sell me on an E-book.  After two Writer's Conferences extolling the virtues and the necessities of owning and using such a system, my underdog sad face knew I couldn't stay ignorant forever.  Choosing stubborn ignorance is a lovely way of hiding out from pushing myself to try the new and different.   A place that is tried and true and ancient is my favorite dwelling place.  I talk a big game about change but...

Hesitantly, I have to say that getting my Nook has been a good thing (said very swiftly and running all the words together so as not to be understood).  Yes, change is good.  My reading has quadrupled in the past few weeks.  One of my favorite tools is the e-dictionary.  Any word available at my lazy fingertips.  How many times did my mother tell me to look it up?  I think this still counts because I am looking up new words, which is like chewing meat for a writer, feasting on the protein need to fuel my mind.  And the Nook keeps a record of the words I look up.

But there is one item I didn't consider when I purchased my new fancy reading book!  I've always considered a person using a cell phone or an Ipad as a movie or television screen absolutely nuts.  How in the world would a little bitty screen serve up anything of entertainment value?

This morning, at 3 a.m., I was holding the Nook in my lap, mesmerized by the little jewel box of Downton Abbey on a screen as big as the "add extra postage" size postcard.  It was a tiny version of my old television but I have to admit, still charming and interesting.  All the brilliance of the show seemed to be magnified even on this Lilliputan network.  I wouldn't want to do all my viewing in that format because I am usually cross-stitching while I watch any t.v.

Now it is Friday.  Yesterday I found out that D.A. will be returning to the American screen in January 2014.  Whew.  A relief because I will have more time to watch Season 3.  We were out of town and I was showing my father-in-law my Nook with all of its bells and whistles.  And it froze up entirely.  Zilch.  No turn off or any change of anykind.  The battery heated up and it died.

When you are becoming accustomed to a new gadget, sudden death is debilitating.  This Nook had already made me say in writing how much I was enjoying the e-process.  It's like being in sixth grade again, and having this cute boy walk me to class for a couple of days and tell me how much he likes me and how impressed he is that I'm on page 175 out of 610 pages of Look Homeward Angel, oh, I

mean that he might want to go steady and then poof.  Zilch.  Heartbreak.  Jerk.  The joke is on me.

However, this story has a better middling.  We aren't to the ending.  The store where I purchased the dropped dead device (I never dropped it, in truth) replaced it with a newer, better conditioned version, we hope.  I still have not been home long enough to figure out how to transfer my 1st Nook library into my 2nd Nook Book.  But between blogging and nooking, I'm learning new tricks, I hope. 

Lessons learned:  Change is good.  New words bring new ideas.  Downton Abbey is delightful and entertaining even on a postcard.  Many happy returns occur.  No caffeine after six.  A mean boy's name is easily forgotten.   


The summer before sixth grade, vacationing in Colorado