Alas & Alack ~ Also Woe is Me

by Kerry Blair

“Alas!” I moan, swooning into the brocade chair behind my writing desk. “How disconsolate am I!”

Gazing upon my practically perfect new salon, I should be the happiest of women. The windows are tall, arched, and multi-paned. The walls are an attractive brick and moss green. The floor is wood, covered by a small rug that feels like velvet beneath my feet. With the coming of autumn’s cool mornings, heat will pour forth from a charming cast-iron stove. The furnishings are all Victorian and include an elegant settee, beautifully operational Victrola, Civil War-era rocker and quilt, wicker baby carriage filled with ferns, small lawyer’s cabinet with antique books, and the comfy, aforementioned chair and desk. (When my son first saw the room he asked where I keep the time machine. A new little neighbor girl wonders why I live in a museum.) It is the “office” for which I have pined all my life.

Except.

I can no longer commune with the world outside my cozy walls. Mind you, I did not intend to plunge headlong into 1900 without a necessity or two plucked from the 21st century. I craftily concealed a computer tower behind some greenery and secreted a wireless keyboard in a handy drawer. The monitor masquerades as a watercolor when not monitoring.) Alas! (Yet again.) Despite my brilliant design, it turns out my machine, modern as it is, receives no Internet service here in “the country.” (This despite a hundred dollars in house calls, and multiple consultations with supposed experts.) I have struggled along thus for two weeks now and have grown lonely, morose . . . and did I mention disconsolate? I haven’t read a blog in a fortnight. (Including this one. Is everyone still alive?) I can access e-mail through the miracle of cell phone communication, but only if the messages are very short and contain no ads or attachments. I dare not reply. The mere thought of trying to communicate by use of a keyboard the size of a tablespoon brings on the vapors. Thus, I am left this morning to face the stark, unforgiving reality: I will be an author, and blogger, no longer.

I shall retire to my settee to languish.

But, wait! Here at my fingertips is the January 1895 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. (A fine publication; I urge you to subscribe. Of course, I haven’t read an issue newer than, say, 1921.) Perusing its contents I suddenly realize that Mary Jameson Judah didn’t need a computer to write “An Adventure of a Lady of Quality.” And didn’t clever Katrina Trask pen “Beyond. A Story” with, I presume, a pen? Ah! A glimmer of hope! I have several jars of ink and a fair supply of quills on yonder geese. Moreover, I have six or eight pencils and sheaf upon sheaf of good white paper. As long as I boast, I’ll draw your notice to my top-of-the-line (in 1910) typing machine. Not that I can depress its keys. (Do you have any idea how strong-of-finger our predecessors must have been?) By some method, I can yet write!

And another thing is certain: I have thoroughly tired of being the slacker around here. (Perish the thought I usurp Rob from the one thing he’s particularly good at!) I will return to blogging post haste!

This leaves us only to smooth out the details of delivery. If my remembrance of “cyber hits” on the Frog Site serves me, the cost of standard post to each of you will far exceed my weekly egg-money . . . what to do . . . what to do . . . Eureka! I have it! Each of you need only dispatch toward Central Arizona a hale and hearty carrier pigeon before Thursday next. Thus will you continue to receive my freshly-penned blogs on a weekly basis. (Sorry, no owls will be accepted. The chickens fear owls.) You may, of course, comment as always by return-pigeon.

I am anxious to renew our acquaintances. Please don’t let me down.

Note: This notice courtesy of the one person I know in all the countryside with Internet connection. My deepest thanks.