Blessings 8-5-09

1. Last night: The tingly whoosh and bang of fireworks on our beach.

2. This morning: a platinum lozenge of sun melting through fog.

3. Trying to think constructively, not defensively, about my shortcomings regardless of whether they are real or merely perceived.

4. The richness of writing on the Internet. There are so many intelligent, fascinating words on blogs, in reader comments on media sites, and really, all over the Web. Yes, there is lots of dreck and coarse harassment, too. But prose diamonds are scattered generously. If you have something to share in your own words, no publisher or agent is required. The Web is the Wild West, the new frontier, outer space, and (metaphorically) the Library at Alexandria – all as close as your keyboard.

5. Speaking of keyboards, I will always be grateful that my mother signed me up for typing class in summer school between ninth and tenth grades, decades before anyone knew we'd all be communicating via personal computers. My own school assignments were always neatly typed on my Hermes portable manual machine, and I made a good chunk of spending money in college by charging 50 cents a page for typing other students' papers.

How do kids learn to type nowadays? Our daughter was taught touch-typing in her (all-girls) middle school and can type close to 90 wpm, but our sons hunt and peck. Shouldn't touch-typing – the kind where you don't need to look at the keyboard as you work – be taught universally in middle schools as befits the most basic of today's necessary skills?