Recently my printer kind of died. I don’t react well to the sudden failure of technology. Modernity has spoiled me. Give me gridlocked traffic, event planning, or final exams. None of those set me off like something that usually works, suddenly not working. Fortunately my printer is largish, and positioned in such a way as to make it difficult to hurl across the room. (The same cannot be said for certain cell phones and remote controls from my past.)
Financial factors have prevented me from replacing my marginally functioning printer, but that has turned out to be kind of a nice thing. I had no idea that I had become so printer dependent. I really think of my self as more of a pencil on paper person. I even rebelled, to a degree, in law school. I started out in my 1L year toting my laptop to every class like all of those around me. (Seriously, that scene in Legally Blonde where Reese Witherspoon is surrounded by classmates hunched behind their little screens is completely accurate.)
By my second semester I had turned away from that approach. Along with my natural inclination to take notes in a very free-form, arrows and circles and diagrams kind of way (and my tendency to doodle) I was completely incapable of not checking my email or googling whatever random topic came to mind when I should have been learning about the rule against perpetuities. I became the girl who took notes by hand, and I think it was a good choice --- I managed to graduate anyway. And I would have thought that would put me squarely in the analog column when it comes to putting ink to paper. It turns out I have been lulled into believing such a thing. The Matrix has me.
When it comes to birthday cards and other little “hand made” gift type things I have become overly reliant on my printing capabilities. With the loss of said capabilities I have been forced to resort to that most ancient of technologies; my hands. And it has been great.
It started with my friend Stephenie’s birthday. I’ve done a few cards in the past where I use old photos or web images, and maybe a little Photoshop magic to create a delightfully charming (or delightfully inappropriate) little birthday treat. Coming up on Steph’s birthday knowing that I would have to resort to other options drove me to the markers and colored pencils section of my bedroom. I mulled over my options and decided to go for an acrostic. I doubt I’ve made an acrostic since I was in elementary school, so I guess I was due. After some brainstorming, a first draft mock up, and a good 45 minutes of good old fashioned coloring I had created a cleverly personalized something I was sure Steph would enjoy.
As a thank you for recommending the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower to me, I was inspired to whip up a mixed CD for my cousin Sarah. If you’ve read the book you know it should really be a mixed tape, but we live in a modern age so I went CD with it.
Putting together the actual CD was no more difficult than whipping up a playlist in iTunes. Where the fun part came in was the song list. If I were working with a printer I’d probably have just typed up a list of songs and artists on one side of a paper and maybe have grabbed some book or movie (they’re making a Wallflower movie) related image from the web for the other side. Instead, I was going to have to hand write the list, and come up with a cover too. The nostalgic vibe of the book made me think of all the doodling that I (and everyone else I know) did on notebooks in school. So I basically doodled the song names and artists, drew a picture of an old tape for the cover, and sewed the pages together. I very nearly kept it for myself.
All that being said, I’m buying a new printer this week.
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