Jo-Ann Mapson

Mac Mommy

My very first typewriter was my dad's old Smith-Corona. It weighed a ton. While traveling from Vermont to Massachusetts, lugging far too many suitcases, I set it down in a bus station and purposely left it. It was killing my shoulder, and I liked the idea of someone else picking it up, using it himself or pawning it for rent money. My next machine was electric, and typed in three colors. One of Jack's kindergarten chums wrecked it, but that was okay. I wasn't writing then. When I decided to try writing a book, I moved up to a low-end IBM clone with erase tape. I bought it on time, and every month when I sent in my check, I gasped at the frivolous $25 spent on words rather than groceries. Like a musician playing on a tinny spinet will dream of baby grands, I lusted after the very first word processors. Then amazingly enough, I won a statewide short-story contest. First prize was a Kaypro computer which didn't even have a hard drive. It used those big old used floppy disks for the program as well as the files.

The Kaypro was an ugly duck, an engineer's weekend project-metal case, weird little screen with glowing green type--but it never stopped running. When I bought my first PC, with a then enormous 20-megabyte hard drive, I gave the Kaypro to my old college writing teacher, the Marxist guy, actually. He wrote his first novel on it. Following that, there were color monitors, gigabytes, zip drives and whatnot. I typed my first couple of novels in WordPerfect. The commands drove me crazy, so when I started my third book, I moved to Microsoft Word. It seemed like every two years I had to buy a new computer, but at least the program stayed the same.

Enter this year's Sobig and Details viruses. Though CPR was performed several times, my PC did not fully recover. It has two chronic illnesses: Freeze Screen, Crash Outright, which results in pop-ups galore and stern lectures from Norton.

Since early December found us bailing out the main floor on our house after a pipe burst, and ruined the hardwood floor, the concept of shelling out $ on a new machine was not a happy prospect. Whenever I have ANY extra money, one of three things happen:

Cricket the rat terrier eats a foreign object, such as a corn cob, or a macadamia nut that lodges in her gut and needs to be surgically removed, but which she will barf up on the operating table and then ask what's for lunch. It's essential that this occur after regular vet hours, preferably on a holiday.
One of the cars starts acting weird, like Rhoda the Rodeo. She just won't start until she is good and ready.
3. Jack decides he wants to go to med school.

So when Jacqui happened to be getting rid of her never used Powerbook, and said I could have it. Have it! Not pay her for it, just have it, I was thrilled. I am still dumbfounded and looking for really great gifts for her. So now I find myself making the move to Mac. Such a change affects the entire soul, I'm discovering.

I used to be a type-A. Walked like a New Yorker, "let's cut to the chase" was my mantra. I wrote one book a year, no exceptions. When I was on tour for one book I was writing the next one in my hotel room. This is actually a defense mechanism. If you're engrossed in one story while a book reviewer is trashing the other one, you don't cry so often. Living at warp speed is an outgrowth of control freakism, or as Stewart is wont to say, "In another life, I bet you were a rickshaw driver." Since moving to AK, I am now an A minus, or occasionally a B type. If you hurry in the snow bad stuff happens. A couple passed me outside Fred Meyer as I was sliding one day and sang: "Walk where it's white and you'll be all right, but walk where it's shiny and you'll fall on your heinie."

Mac people live differently. They read Newsweek , not Time . They drive hybrids, Hondas, Volvos and Subarus. They like slow-cooked soup, and whole grain bread made by hand. They may need a haircut, or have two different socks on, but whatever they're working on, you can bet money it's something of creative genius. If you were to hack into their Internet Favorite Places, you'd find the Nature Conservancy, The Onion, and Salon, or a chat room with intellectual commentary on this season's Survivor . That guy Jon-the first true villain in television history-thank God he didn't win a dime is all I can say. Other bookmarked sites are Powell's Books, for out of print books, Medscape if the Mac user is over fifty, because we aging boomers are all about the three V's: vitamins, Vioxx and Viagra. The New York Times, Publisher's Lunch (for following everyone else's jillion-dollar book deals).

Mac people wear Merrells, Bjorn clogs, and Ugg slippers. They tie flies and release the fish. I have always wondered how the fish feels-do they live out their remaining days as anorexics, shell-shocked, and afraid to eat? Throw in a designer label and a wine fridge for those who've traded in love beads and fringe for DKNY jackets and freshwater pearls.

Carrie Bradshaw on Sex & the City uses a Mac. Her character once got so pissed at her boyfriend for buying her a new model, when she wanted her old one, flaws and all, that they later broke up. Yes, the Mac is poky. It doesn't like to multi-task, but while you're waiting, it has that cute little rainbow-candy-spinning thing, and if you really mess up, it gives you the smiley face with the giant question mark, which feels like Douglas Adams's novels about the end times.

My Mac is skinny and lightweight (like I hope I will be one day), and has a titanium cover. I like to take it with me wherever I go. It's light, and friendly looking. The apple with the bite out of it is cute. I refuse to add the Internet to it. That would be kind of like serving Kool-Aid with Chateaubriand. This baby is clean and she is going to stay that way.

Happy New Year! We made it through 2003, and 2004 has got to be better. Goodbye, Earl is in the bookstores at last. Makes a good present for Mom, or your wilder Grannies, and of course your best girlfriend. I'm betting if you buy one now and give it to her during a romantic moment you will reap tremendous affection for your marvelous good taste. I have to go now, because Cricket is giving me that look that means the emergency vets are waiting for us.

^Top