Of This and Other Worlds

So I popped off all the keys and cleaned my keyboard thoroughly with rubbing alcohol, and then I gave it a few hours to dry. Tonight I decided to test it out by typing "the quick brown fox".

The result looked like this:

wx

No, I'm not kidding. It's really that bad. *weeps*

Right now I am typing on a cruddy old keyboard borrowed from my parents, but it also happens to be the only keyboard they have for their computer so I may have to return it at any moment. Meanwhile my beautiful Microsoft Natural Keyboard lies face-down over the register, in a last vain hope that all it needs is just a little... more... drying. I don't hold out much hope, though.

Anyway, all of that is to say, if I'm not around quite as much as usual the next couple of days, you'll know why.

hedda62, I saw these and, inevitably, thought of you. :)

Speaking of O'Brian, I just read "21" last weekend, and as with the case of Dorothy Dunnett and the missing last Johnson Johnson book (of which even less, that is to say nothing at all, exists) it seems somehow impossible to believe that this really is The End, and there will never be any more canon, and that if you want to know what happened to the characters you are just going to have to make it up in your own head.

But making it up just isn't satisfactory, not with either of those two authors. They're too singular, too inimitable. If JKR were to unexpectedly shuffle off this mortal coil (though I fervently hope she doesn't!) and leave the HP series unfinished, I think I might eventually find some fanfic or other, or if necessary write one myself, that would give me a sense of closure. But not with O'Brian or Dunnett.

Sigh.

My eighth grade teacher died today.

Jessie Paul was only in her sixties, but she'd always been ill with a host of ailments... even when she taught my class, I remember her leaning heavily on her cane and missing a number of work days. Her body was swollen with glandular problems, leaving her face and form bloated and puffy. But she was a warm, sweet, encouraging lady, with a gentle twinkle in her eyes -- one of the only teachers I ever had who really encouraged me, as a student and particularly as a writer.

Jessie was a believer in Christ, and attended the same local church as my brother and sister-in-law; when she passed away today, it was in the presence of my sister-in-law and her baby, who had come to the hospital to visit her. She went quietly, peacefully, slipping away from years of weakness and suffering and into the presence of her beloved Lord. "Death is swallowed up in victory." For her, it's a wonderful release.

But I will miss her.