Such a situation arrived yesterday. My youngest was staying in, recovering from one of those spontaneous fevers that children seem to develop. Using the Beast is out of the question when a kid's in the room, much less a sick kid propped up on pillows watching her way through our DVD collection. And all my auditioned machines are at my office. Drat!
I could have grabbed any of the spares here at home, but since I discovered how well OnlineOCR works for me this year, I'm hesitant to use a machine with irregular type, as many of them do. And of course, being a sort-of collector means that you get to play favorites.
This is when I remembered Gomez, my same-era SM3, who was tucked away on the floor of the coat closet.
I grabbed an old cafeteria tray we have at home, Gomez, and paper, and headed off into the bedroom to work. An emergency type-cleaning with some alcohol and an old toothbrush was all it needed to get the slugs shining. Gomez types at the odd-sized 11 cpi size (picalite?) so every page from that machine is like one and a half from the Beast, and over the course of the day, I ducked in to try to knock out a page when I wasn't swapping DVDs or getting beverage refills.
Gomez was a well-loved machine before I got him from Freecycle. I'd forgotten about the stray marker scribbles on his side and the mysterious sticky something (gum, I hope) on the front corner of his frame. The ribbon cover paint is worn away from being scraped by the return lever, and he desperately needed the gasket-replacement repair.
His looks may not be much, but oh! I am a stalwart lover of these Teutonic marvels. Gomez rescued the day's writing... though not the plot. Nothing in my collection can manage that.
7 comments:
Good for Gomez.
I like that picalite size, I think it's perfect.
Sounds like a nice type face. The typewriter is sure a good looking machine.
Nice machine, but you left me hanging! What knitting project is that?
I think Gomez is pretty!
Best of luck working through your novel's recent twists and turns. To my way of thinking...a sequel would seem like the perfect opportunity for the characters to take liberties!
With Gomez and the Swiss army knife you are well equipped for the nanowrima challenges ahead.
Sophia, the knitting in the second picture is the typing pad seen under the beast in the first photo, after being felted in the wash. I wrote up directions for the craftily-inclined, and since made a second thicker one for home use out of some hideous yarn I found at the thrift store. The Lion "Fisherman's Wool" shown in the pic made a much dressier-looking pad.
Way to call an audible at the line of scrimmage.
Or, whatever sports metaphor you prefer.
I don't really know what it means, either. Something Payton Manning does, I think. Whoever that is.
But here's my point - way to go with the flow and keep typing.
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