I bought a laptop this weekend; an iBook. It’s my first ever laptop. I still have my G4 with the gigantic monitor that’s basically a screen attched to an anvil, and that’ll still be the mothership, but I got the iBook so I can take it places. I guess I can leave the house with it and everything. So far it’s gone from the kitchen table to the coffee table several times. I keep opening it and closing it. I told you, I’m new to this.
I do not think I will ever be able to get used to the trackpad. How do you people do it? It’s sort of like driving a stick shift except instead of the stick there’s a… finger. Seriously: a finger. It doesn’t matter that it’s MY finger; it actually makes me squeamish. It seems sort of unsanitary. I almost want to put the eraser end of a pencil to my computer’s little tickly area instead. I would rather use a mouse and keep a safe distance from things.
(Don’t even get me started on trackballs. Using one of those things is like climbing stairs in roller skates. It’s reckless and unnatural. Also the ball is in a socket. I don’t know if I can convey how gross this is to me. The ball is in a socket and anyone could just pluck it out, and roll it around all disembodied, or even stick it in their mouth. No.)
When I write I’m a pretty compulsive cutter and paster and dragger-rearranger, and as far as I can tell I can’t do those functions on a trackpad unless I use several fingers all at once. As someone who couldn’t even snap her fingers until age 12, this is asking a lot from me. The most I’ve ever been able to accomplish with several fingers on one hand is playing that little opening ditty to Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough on my brother’s Roland keyboard. And even then I think I got it wrong. Anyway, I understand the rest of you can handle your laptop trackpads and your New Wave just fine, but I’m just telling you here.
