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April 28, 2005

7 becomes 4; delete 5; 9 becomes 6;

I'm working at home, working in a file with footnotes. I am editing the file and removing great chunks of text and I am noticing ...--well, one thing about the kind of stuff I edit is that there are always a lot of lists. The people in my company are list happy. Why stop with just one example when you can have fifteen? Why name three organizations when you can name all sixty-five? Okay, people; it's not like you get a better grade if you have the most bullets.

But anyway, I am editing this file, which has footnotes--and not the Word-generated kind, either. Manual footnotes. So when I delete a few paragraphs of text, there go the references. Then I have to go footnote by footnote and renumber. One stays one, two stays two, three stays three, seven becomes four, four becomes five, five becomes eleven ... you get the idea. It takes a while and I am staring at the screen and scribbling numbers on a piece of paper. I'm on page 35 of a 70-page file, about a billion footnotes behind me and a billion more ahead.

Spike comes in. He has a water-bottle cap in his mouth. He jumps up on my desk, drops the cap. Sits down and looks at it. Looks at me. I pick up the cap and toss it; Spike leaps off the desk and fetches. Fetches like a dog. Brings the cap back, drops it. Looks at it. Looks at me. I throw it again. We keep this up for a little while. Jump. Drop. Throw. Fetch. I wonder how long this will interest him; it's already gotten old for me. Jump. Drop. Okay, let's stop now. This time, though, when I throw, Spike runs across my keyboard and ... zap. The screen freezes. Word errors out. Good-bye.

Oh, for-- I shout at the screen. Spike looks at me then turns, jumps up onto the desk opposite me. Positions himself in front of the other computer screen and gets up on his hind legs. Paws at the screen like he's digging a hole. Does he think his reflection is another cat? Does he like the way the screen feels on his paws? Does he know he's in trouble?

He gets tired of playing with his reflection, yawns. Settles down on the keyboard with his front paws tucked under him, just like a real cat. He's growing up. He watches me, eyes green slits almost the exact color of the grass outside. I can hear him purring.

"Word has recovered your file." Hey, thanks, Bill Gates. But now it's time for lunch. And a bottle of Deer Park.

Posted by JudyLa at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)