But it’s more than a habit. I find comfort in the heft and texture of books. Those physical qualities evoke the whispered, echoing silence and the vaguely dusty paper aroma of the library. There’s something real in the sensation of paper against my fingertips. There’s security in the static layout of each page. Things are where they ought to be — and they stay there.

I’m not here to argue digital versus paper. Each has its advantages. I’m fully aware that .pdfs have fixed pages and that searching on the Internet is exponentially quicker than paging through various books. I’m talking about a holistic experience. You can’t smell the history in a pixel. You can’t thoughtfully trace your fingers across the words on your computer screen (you can, but the smudges!). You can’t contemplate the weight of each book you read on an ebook reader. Sure you have the words and the pictures, but the unique character of the book is purposefully stripped away to make things neat and simple and eerily 1984.

It isn’t only the physical relationships with my dictionary and thesaurus that keep me tethered to them. It’s the way my eyes wander from the word I seek to its neighbors. It’s the serendipitous discovery of words. The rediscovery of words I’ve allowed to fall into disuse. It’s my language: the way I connect with everything that is not me. The printed page makes it feel human and personal in a way that a computer screen simply can’t.

If this is my age or my eccentricity, so be it. I’m not technophobic. I love my computers and the instantaneous nature of the Internet. But when it comes to the English language, I’ll take the print edition every time.

— Mary

So, despite feeling like an emotional soccer ball, at least I can point to something positive.

Really.

– Mary

Addendum:

I figured out what I did wrong. I’m still annoyed because I want to change the look of this blog and I’m having difficulty with the code. I need a decent FTP client.

– Mary

That’s the plan, anyway.

Leave some comments if you like. Or you can contact me through my MySpace page (Or, if you want to see the URL: http://www.myspace.com/maryrdrews).

–Mary

Let’s see …

Lately, I’ve been writing quite a lot of poetry. Some of it’s all right and some of it’s terrible. But I’m writing. That’s the important thing. I’ve been able to go back and mine some of my old journals, too. I had thought that I’d written nothing at all for a few years, but it turns out that I did write a few things. Some of them are even salvageable, now that I’m in tune with the universe again.

I suspect that most of the people who come across this blog are people who know me from my ferret writing, so they (you) might not know that I was a poet long before I even knew what a ferret is. I’ve never managed to write a poem about a ferret. It’s like writing a really good love poem: nearly impossible. It always ends up too schmaltzy or saccharine (or do those mean the same thing?). I’ve had to stick to prose when it comes to writing about ferrets.

Speaking of ferrets … I’ve been looking at pictures of all my babies. I miss them. They were such warm (in every sense of the word) friends. Maybe when I stop crossing the Atlantic several times a year, I’ll get some more.

That’s about all for right now. But don’t be surprised if there’s another post before this night is through. I’ve been writing all sorts of things, which is good. Very good, indeed.

–Mary