It’s been an interesting few days, weeks, months… in that kind of Chinese curse, “you shall live in interesting times” kind of way. The most recent interesting thing that’s happened was that I stepped up on a curb sidewalk that wasn’t a curb sidewalk but actually turned out to be the edge of a (unpainted, poorly lit) concrete handicap ramp, turned my ankle and took a tumble (to put it mildly).
Long story short, I ended up with a twisted and bruised left ankle, a scraped up right ankle and shin, several missing layers of skin from my right knee, a strained and bruised left-hand and wrist, as well as a broken thumb and two jammed fingers on my right hand.
The cuts, bruises, scrapes, sprains and strains–not fun but I can deal. The broken right thumb and the lovely almost-up-to-the-elbow cast it has necessitated–not so much.
You’d be amazed how simple things like, oh, say, taking a shower, washing my hair, shaving my legs, etc. etc. become a whole new experience in flexibility (or lack thereof) when one can only use one’s left hand, and that hand is bruised and strained enough that if the right weren’t in a cast, it (the left) would be in a brace or an ace bandage. And that’s just personal hygiene stuff.
Things I need to do on the computer/laptop tend to take anywhere from 2 to 5 times as long to do, depending on the task. As for most housework–yardwork–gardening–swimming etc.–fuggedaboudit.
Fortunately for me, I have MacSpeech Dictate
And that’s where the rattlesnakes come in.
I’ve been reading this book by Dale Carnegie and, while some of the information and expressions and so on are dated, the basic principles remain the same. When life hands you rattlesnakes start a rattlesnake farm, selling canned rattlesnake meat, rattlesnake skin for boots and bags and whatnot, and any other usable part of the little beasties. This was his example for the (chapter title) old “if life hands you lemons . . .” adage. I liked the rattlesnake farm–less cliché, more sexy. 🙂
My rattlesnake farm is that my current circumstances are forcing me to get more adept with my MacSpeech Dictate program. And, after all, that’s what I bought it for several months ago–to speed up at least first drafts of all the writing I do.
It’s a little weird, inasmuch as when I’m writing I usually have this voice in my head that is reading, critiquing, editing, and revising as I’m typing. Writing using my MacSpeech Dictate is distinctly different as I’m not hearing that little voice or not constantly–maybe because it’s coming out of my mouth? I don’t think so because the voice coming out of my mouth is a lot slower (in more ways than one).
Still, it’s early days yet–my lovely new right arm accessory will be with me for the next five
weeks–and who knows, between now and then maybe my little brighter editorial homunculus may come back. Or maybe the voice coming out of my mouth will get brighter and pre-edit, as well as write (or draft) faster.
Or maybe I’ll just go can some rattlesnake meat… 😉
Rebecca