Clackin' Constipation
"We have a problem." Such from The Lovely Linda as we drove from a farewell dinner at our favorite restaurant. My pilot instincts kicked in and I quickly scanned the dials, and checked with the sensors in my butt. Didn’t seem like anything was wrong with the car. With lightning speed, I also reviewed dinner, specifically the conversation, and could find no black holes that her remark might have referenced our marriage. I waited, steeling myself, knowing she did not make such comments lightly.
The dinner was at Cafe Maddalena’s in Dunsmuir, a good hour driving each way. It’s simply the best food north of Sacramento, and as there’s nothing edible in Redding, we make the journey every coupla weeks when she’s open; otherwise, I cook. The purpose of the dinner, for we often ascribe an occasion to the inherent celebration of the fine food, was that we were both headed out of town, to different destinations and wouldn’t see each other for four days. That’s a long time when you're as close to each other as much as we are. Maybe it's love, maybe it's habit, but that's another essay.
I was heading off to Alexandria, Louisiana to complete shooting of a television program on collaborative divorce and would be gone for two days, while Linda was departing a day later for three nights in the Southland, to see her grandchildren on her way to a presentation on collaborative law before a group of attorneys in Palm Springs. Therein lay the problem. She needed our laptop computer for her Powerpoint presentation.
I could understand her obvious need, but I was to be flying for five hours on two planes, each way, not to mention that the airlines say you should be at the airport two hours before your flight -- yeah, right -- and it’s the beginning of the Thanksgiving's period with who knows what delays. Plus I faced a three hour layover at The Bush, the new airport in Houston. Yes, and?...you might ask.
The thing is, if I had to come up with a single label for myself, it would have to be writer, because that’s what people infer when I explain to them my professional activities. But the real issue is that I feel lost if I don’t have access to a keyboard for any long period of wakefulness. I mean, that’s why we bought the laptop, so that when I traveled, I could still write. Reason two was that Linda would have a computer to work on at home when I was using my desktop, which was most of the time.
Oh yes, I can read; no one in his right mind would get on a plane without at least two things to read, and I’m not talking about the airline magazines, which are clinically boring. Even though I was bringing a Nero Wolfe with me, one that I probably hadn’t read, at least not recently. And a Flight Training magazine, which is really more like homework; "a good pilot is always learning" it says on the cover. But I can only read so much, and the trip in front of me was longer than that.
The fact is that writing is therapy for me. I get constipated if I can’t clack. Oh sure, there are the old quill-'n-parchment, but I can’t write as quickly as I can type, not nearly, plus my hand cramps quickly. Surely I shouldn’t have to endure two long days of traveling without a computer. I mean, I would if I had to, for Linda, but....
Ultimately, it turned out, after a coupla tense hours before we could reach Denise, that Linda would be able to borrow her daughter’s laptop, which was available and equipped with Powerpoint. Phew.
Maybe you don’t understand, but when I took my constitutional with Buster to pick up the paper the next morning before I departed, as I walked, I jotted two dozen words in my notepad which formed this piece. I then wrote most of it at the Sacramento airport, and finished it on the flight to Houston. While in Houston, suffering the indelicacies of airport food, I jotted down notes for another piece, so I don’t think I could have held this one, freshly, through the weekend.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.
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