09 August 2005

Me so tiny


Thanks to my fantastic new employer I am now the owner of wee laptop to the left. Completely having to orient myself to all this wireless business, and still working next to desktop computer (fab new Gateway purchased prior to job offer; we aren't a total computer wasteland over here, really).

I haven't written poems on a laptop in years. The last time I used a laptop for any length of time was when I took my comps for my Ph.D. back in...2001? Of course I didn't have the battery charged, and of course the power went out in stately University Hall, but because the computer was a laptop I was able to carry it down from the 18th floor, plug it in elsewhere, and recover my lengthy response asap, pass my exams, and graduate. I guess laptops are on my side. I feel a friendship coming on.

So y'all...laptop or desktop? Writer friends, have you had better results with one or the other? And why are my wrists so hot?

7 comments:

P. J. said...

You have hot wrists b/c you're Mary Biddinger. and they are attached to the rest of you. How Ben Jonson of me is *that*, huh?

I have a desktop only because when I was buying my new Apple a few years ago, I was set on the 15" Powerbook, but the day I ordered, they upgraded the flat-panel iMacs, so I got the 17" one and I love it; however, I'm looking into a laptop this fall so I can spend more time in Ohio at Xmas and still work on my dissertation(*coughreadblogscough*). I think it'll also make taking a pee at Starbucks much more social, when you have to ask a strange someone "will you watch my computer while I pee, please?" and right there you've got a date if you need one for Saturday night.

Unknown said...

I like writing poems on my desktop. It's cumbersome, like poetry should be.

kristy bowen said...

I was completely without a computer at home until this last semester. I usually waited an typed things up at work. Read blogs at work. Edited wicked alice at work. Did everything except work, actually, on my nice flat screened desktop. My class in New Media Poetics, however, warranted watching bizarre pieces at all hours, even at home, so I finally broke down and got the laptop. But I still type poems at work where the keyboard isn't quite so tiny and typo prone.

gina said...

I've always worked on a laptop. It's not ideal at the desk--I've had wicked spill disasters and the pc I have right now, a Dell, seems to heat up--but I need to be able to travel with my computer. My life is on it.

(melodramatic of me, eh?)

Pamela Johnson Parker said...

Desk top. Laptop keys are too small and slow me way, way down. I owned one but gave it away, because it was so user unfriendly. I've only used laptops for POWERpoint presentations.

Suzanne said...

Desktop. If we're traveling I'll use my husband's laptop, but it's maddening getting used to a different keyboard.

Matthew Thorburn said...

Mary, I used to have a laptop but found that, post-college, I only ever used it sitting at my desk. So I switched to a desktop a couple years ago and am now hooked on having a nice big screen and keyboard...

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