One Fingered Typist

The plan was to tell you about the two high school reunions (even though you probably don't care), and some of my adventures in my home town hanging out with old friends and some of the behind the scenes stuff on the Bill’s Little Movie Project and the first short story about Mitch Robertson that I outlined in the Santa Fe Airport months ago and, of course, Friday’s With Hitchcock: REBECCA - which has been half written for a while and I brought the DVD with me to watch again so that I could finish the article...

But this bike accident thing has put a crimp in those plans.

What is a two fingered typist to do when one of his hands is in a split? I now have 50% fewer fingers to type with!

So the act of typing, which even with only two fingers has become second nature to me, is now something that’s a struggle - especially with the keys on the left side of the board and the shift key. I have to *work* at it. Some of the letters in that sentence were easy, others required a full rethink-rewire of the brain to type. If I could only write sentences with the letters YUIOPHJKLVBNM it would be easy. But I don’t know any words with those letters, mon.

(you, boy, lob, pub, in....)

Which means the article for Script I had notes on that I was going to dash out a few days ago? Still slowly pecking away at it - should finish it today. If it had only been about a boy in a pub! Next up in priority are the book chapter rewrites... but I suspect I will hang out with friends instead of getting much done, as I have not spent much time doing that so far. Mostly, I’ve been taking it easy.

Left hand is still swollen, though not as bad - but that’s the injury that I’m most worried about, and the right knee is much better... the right elbow road rash is still ugly. If wrist is still messed up when I return to Los Angeles I will see my doctor about it, but it does seem to be getting better. I am keeping it splinted and not using it - which is why sentences like this take longer to write than usual. Over the years my brain has become a kind of manual typewriter with my fingers as those long things with the letters on the end that strike through the ribbon to the page. Now it’s like some of those little arms are tangled, making it more difficult for the others to strike the ribbon. 75% of you probably have no idea what I am talking about.

Strange (not an easy word) thing (easier) is how my brain has wired itself over the years to use my right hand on the right side of the keyboard without any real thought required anymore... but I must consciously think about hitting any keys on the left side with my right hand - and my brain kind of fights me on this. We (hard) program ourselves to think in a certain way, and thinking in some other way is difficult even if we try. I think that may be a trap to creativity - doing things the same way all the time. Maybe we need to try doing things in different ways every once in a while to break away whatever cobwebs or plaque build up from following the same patterns? Maybe being a one fingered typist for a while is a blessing instead of a curse?

Though, after spending at least twice as long to type this as usual, I’m using my one finger for a different purpose... and flipping off this wrist splint.

- Bill