Yesterday I had one of those moments where I realized I was pretty much living in the future, technology-wise. Which of course, for me, meant that I'd almost gotten caught up to the present. Which will never happen. I'm always going to be a couple steps behind tech.

I had the moment when I realized I was reading/experiencing literature in at least five different formats. It was still about the words, but I was getting them in a variety of fashions.

I was reading Elizabeth Bear's novel Hammered on my battered Palm Vx. I'd just listened to the opening chapter of James Patrick Kelly's novel Burn on my iPod earlier in the day. I'd just critiqued a cool SF story from a writer friend in Portland, Oregon, who'd sent me the story via email (we've never met in person!). I'm revising my own novel electronically in MS Word. And just to be old-school, I'm reading the fifth Harry Potter in its dead-tree version (and the weight of it about kills me).

No wonder I have trouble keeping all the various plotlines straight...

Actually, now that I think about it, I think accessing all this literary "content" in the various formats helps me keep it all straight.

Now to burn a CD of the next few chapters of Burn for the drive to work, now that I've finally finished ripping all our CDs to the iMac. Total count = 3,173 songs and 12.5 GB of memory, almost ten days' worth of listening!

That oughta keep me satisfied for a while... Later!