Type Flies When I'm Having Fun

"Oh, you don't have to leave," said Mac. "You want to finish setting your poem, right?"

Well, I did, but I was tired.

Quiet cogs and fingernails only occupied my meditations for the first three stanzas of my poem's seven. The next three I completed in the company of Mac and Katrina. A few posts ago, I said that Mac was printing 80 quotes - he's actually shooting for 100.

After I found the box of 12pt spacers and gathered up the right length of leads, stanzas one through three took me about two hours. I completed them studiously, peacefully, and alone. Composing is a quieter task than redistributing, with only the softest clicks and the occasional clatter if I knocked a whole line onto its face. When I redistribute, I practically toss each letter to its home, and it clacks familiarly upon landing in its pile. If I threw each letter into the composing stick as I composed, I'd very quickly have a jumble of type rather than ordered lines.

Stanzas four, five and six took longer, but didn't feel longer, thanks to company. I had to keep checking and rechecking my "d"s, "b"s, "p"s and "q"s, and later I discovered that the price of conversation was a few extra mistakes. Mac and I mostly kept our silence, though. I can set and speak pretty near simultaneously now, just slower and less accurately, but Mac still has to furrow his brow and turn down the corners of his mouth just so.

He would mostly pipe up every time I finished a stanza, to insist that even though it was well past my work hours, I should stay a little longer, do another stanza, finish off the poem, anything so he could stick around and knock out another quote. I'm all for enthusiasm, but these days, after 10 pm my fine motor skills want out.

It's times like these I feel old, and I'm only 21.