Extraordinary Machine - 2

I'm lying on the couch, half asleep, with Sweetpea stretched out across my lap, and I've got my new Apple keyboard propped against him as I write this post. He doesn't seem bothered by this, which is testament to the graceful unobtrusiveness of the device's design. If this keyboard were a human being, it would be a young poet. It's amazingly thin and sensitive, and it connects wirelessly to my laptop from up to sixty feet away. Like the keyboard, the wireless Mighty Mouse is blue-tooth enabled, with laser tracking and state-of-the-art functionality. Honestly, though, the mouse, nice as it is, has nothing on the laptop's trackpad, which gives me the ability to move the cursor, drag and drop, double click, and scroll horizontally and vertically, all by tapping or sliding one or two fingers on the flat surface. I've got all the options turned on, and the settings set to their highest sensitivity, so I can practically just breathe on the trackpad and it does what I want. I also purchased a cable that allows me to hook my laptop up to my television and turn it into a second desktop upon which I can manipulate objects via the wireless mouse and keyboard. Do I need to do this? Of course not, but it will come in handy if I can convince my brother to teach me Photoshop. Peering over someone's shoulder is not the optimal way to learn, or to share things one is working on, or reading online.

I also picked up a little microphone accessory last week that pops into the bottom of the iPod Nano, and now I'm speaking into that, recording this post instead of typing it. I'm still lying on the couch with Sweetpea stretched out on my lap and the keyboard propped against his butt. He's snoring quietly. The laptop is on the coffee table beside me and the bluetooth mouse is on the couch by my hip. Scooter's sitting on the table, observing the scene with an expression of mild disdain, but I am not the least bit ashamed of my self-indulgence. With the flexible stem on the mic, I can prop the voice recorder on my chest so I don't even have to hold it, which is great because at the moment, holding it seems like entirely too much trouble.

All I need now is a blue tooth phone that will sync with my mail program, and maybe a telescoping arm that would suspend the MacBook above me as I lie here on the couch. Other than that, I'm well equipped. I can even go out in style: I have this big square Calvin Klein shoulder bag that my mom gave me for Christmas last year. It's grey satiny fabric with silver leather straps and accents, and it matches my laptop as though it were specifically designed to carry it. At some point I'll need to pack my Mac up and go out, but right now I'm too sleepy to go anywhere.

If only I had voice-recognition software that would transcribe this recording into a word document, but alas, I'm going to have to do that myself. But not right now. Right now I'm just going to lie here and flirt with sleep until it either overcomes me or gives up and goes elsewhere, and even then, I probably won't get up. In fact, if I didn't have to get up to eat or go pee, I think I could lie here forever. If I got bored, all I'd have to do is pick up the tiny laptop remote and open Front Row, the sleek new platform for accessing iTunes, iPhoto, DVDs, and video. I could watch a DVD or listen to a lecture without hardly moving a muscle, and since my brother has hooked up my stereo so that I can run iTunes through it, I have access to good-quality sound—not that my little Bose earbuds are deficient, but you can only wear those things for so long, and I'm going to be here a while. If I get lonely, I can get on iChat and visit with a friend. If I want to send an email, I can type it on the little keyboard, and even take a picture of myself to send along with it, without even getting up to get my camera, without getting up at all.

Wow, it's really freezing outside. I can feel the chill from here. If I could, I'd bribe someone to come and put on a fire. And perhaps as long as they were coming to build a fire, they might bring me some movies. And a four-shot latte. God—I'm sleepy! It must be winter. I could stay here, cocooned like this, for the duration. I have a huge jug of protein powder, a box of mandarin oranges and a dozen packages of ramen noodles. That should keep me for a while. I don't need to leave the house. Sleep is pulling me down. I'm hibernating.