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Sitting on a chair
Just sitting
Feet on the ground
Grounding…
Like electricity on it’s poll
For to fly up into bright skies,
While fair and wise,
Is for me
not
For Instability reigns
At such heights
Unstableness is king
So I ground myself
As electricity does
To keep from blowing in the wind
© 2016 Severiano Manalo
Last week was very productive. I finally got my second article sent off to “The People’s Tribune” a paper which I have written for in the past. The writing process this time around was much less stressful. Least of all, my Hyperacusis was under control compared to last time. Both the articles I’ve written deal with education, specifically Democratic Schools such as the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Massachusetts and The Albany Free School in Albany, New York. The rest of my week was wonderful to say the least. My good friend, who I talked about in my last post, came to visit. We had a marvelous time simply hanging out, catching up on each other’s lives, and listening to music. He let me know he was going to be around over Christmas break and would like to see me then as well.
Friendship is a funny thing when you are going though a chronic illness like Hyperacusis, or any illness where isolation is one of the symptoms. The majority of my other friends (although we remain great friends) haven’t visited me as often as the friend mentioned in my last post. He has been far and above the most active in my life since my Hyperacusis. By active I mean that he comes to visit as often as he can. In short he has been there for me through the thick and thin of it. My other friends, by contrast, support me, it seems, from afar. Their support is very meaningful; however, when you’re dealing with a chronic illness, face-to-face time with the ones you love and cherish becomes even more essential. And as far as the Hyperacusis is concerned, even if we can’t talk to each other, just seeing a human face can remind me that I am still myself and that my disease is only one aspect, and not the totality of who I am. The one other friend who has done a wonderful job is my childhood friend, who used to be my neighbor. To give you an idea of what he’s like, when I called him up in terrible pain from the Hyperacusis and my hand and wrist issues, he immediately said, “Well, I have to get the fuck over there then.” No questions, no trying to convince me otherwise, just a no-nonsense recognition of my needs. These two friends were able to provide the same comfort to me though in very different ways. I feel so grateful to all my friends and family for having the courage to see me through these difficult times.
This post was inspired by Arran Hansal at his blog Confessions of An Aspiring Author. Thank you Arran.
My writing gear, consists of my friend’s dad’s MacBook Pro, on extended lone to me, my desktop computer, although the keyboard needs to be replaced for that machine to become truly writing friendly, no crappy dome-switch keyboards for me! As far as the keyboard I’m going to replace it with you ask? It’s probably going to be from Unicomp, the company that is doing remakes of the old IBM Model M classic. It’s considered the Roll’s Royce of computer keyboards. I had an old Model M, from the days I worked at a local computer shop just down the street from me. However, I was curious to know if the switch under the spacebar was the same as all the other keys. Long story short, I managed to pull the cover off, but I found out the spacebar was attached directly to it’s switch. Needles to say, that was the end of that keyboard. So I’m writing, primarily, on the MacBook Pro.
One of the wonderful things about being a writer as that our occupation doesn’t require the latest and greatest tech. It’s also nice to have a separate computer for writing. I know it’s overkill, but I like to have my writing space be separate from my room, where my desktop is.
Software-wise I’m using LibreOffice Writer for my word processor. It gets a lot of flack from professional writers, (as does a lot of open source/free software) but I find for my needs, it’s perfect. I grew up in the old school days of the word processor, think MS Word 97/2000 or so. I don’t mind the slightly clunkier way of doing things. In fact, I think the lack of fancy features, keeps me focused on what’s important, the writing itself.
Another piece of software I’ve recently began to use, is FreeMind. It’s mind mapping software. Remember those brain storming webs, your elementary school teacher used to have you do in class? Well, think of mind mapping software as the high-tech version of that. FreeMind has a hierarchical structure. Just like a family tree, or browsing your files on your computer. You can collapse or expand any one of the branches in your mind map, and color coding is also available. Another thing that’s nice is unlike those old webs, you won’t run out of space.
I’m using FreeMind, as a creative way to outline the current story I’m working on. I find it’s a much better alternative to a plane old outline. I’m also using it to keep track of my interests, which are many. One of the first things I did when I got up on the morning this post was written, was to load up FreeMind and see how it worked. I was thrilled. The software was exactly what I needed. I’d been using Dia a diagraming software for the mind map of my interests, and it was very clunky. FreeMind is much better.
I’d also like to mention Dropbox. If your a Millennial or in Gen X, you’ve probably used it. It’s an indispensable piece of cloud-based software. Dropbox eliminates the need for those pesky USB flash drives, that always seem to get lost. At least for me. I also have it installed on my Android phone, which is great, because it lets me show people my writing on the go.
As far as writing gear, that’s about all I use. If you have any recommendations please leave a comment. I’d love to know what you use. And don’t worry I’m not one of those open source/free software fanboys that’s too good to use Proprietary software if it gets the job done.
If you want to check out these pieces of software here are the links.
FreeMind
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
LibreOffice
http://www.libreoffice.org/
Dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/
A Rare Life 