I’m sitting in the Dirt Cowboy, a small coffee shop on the corner of Main Street in Hanover, right at the edge of the Dartmouth Green. It is 9:40 at night (though of course later by the time I get done with this), and I’m distracted right now by the people and noise and general turbulence of my surroundings (and NOW, and HERE, is where I end up feeling encouraged enough to actually write). I say turbulence, because I feel very much right now that I am adrift from the rest of the world, and that it continues along in its rushing river of reality, apart from me. I see people walk in and walk out, I see Dartmouth coeds sit down and work on homework together, I can see 3 laptops from my seat (there were 4 earlier, but one left… an iBook), and another is about to leave. I myself am on my PDA, using my portable keyboard. I don’t know why I do this: I have a very nice, more versatile laptop. I suppose that is why I use my PDA for writing: it is smaller, more portable, less dynamic, harder to become distracted from things other than writing. Or maybe it’s just that the battery lasts longer on my PDA, and the table that is near the power outlet is almost always busy. Or something.
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Writing this on my PDA, with a keyboard. It’s a pretty nifty method of writing, and a hell of a lot easier than a laptop.

Interesting conversation with my father today over lunch. We were discussing the salient points of knowing the rules or not bothering, ie just ignore what the “standards” are, and just develop your own voice. I’m of the opinion that I should still learn the rules, so that I have the choice to follow or break them as I wish.
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