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Yesterday I went to a sports bar named Sharkey’s for cheap wings and to watch SU (barely) beat UNC-Asheville in the first round of the NCAA tournament. I had been at the library working on an outline for <plug type=”shameless”>something I’ll be posting more about soon</plug>, and brought my bag into Sharkey’s so I could finish up the outline. Which I did. Woot!
At the end of the game, I’m trying to pay my tab and go, and a guy next to me asks, “What’s in your bag?”
“My iPad. A notebook. Some pens and stuff.”
“Whoa!” he says, his dilated eyes somehow getting bigger. “An iPad and a notebook! In my day, we were lucky to have a calculator.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him my notebook was of the spiral variety.
The interaction got me thinking in two somewhat different directions:
1. Why is it a surprise anymore that people have multiple electronic devices with them?
2. At what point did the assumptive meaning of “notebook” become “notebook computer” rather than, well, a notebook?
I don’t really have a good answer to either of these questions. If anyone knows, feel free to edgumacate me.
For what it’s worth, I tend to write first drafts longhand. I find that when I type, my fingers tend to get ahead of my thoughts, or vice versa. I can better pace myself with a pen and paper.
