you are totally in love with your new-old typewriter. it arrived today and the only tiny, tiny thing wrong with it is the backspace key doesn’t work. no bother though, as i’ve already concocted a workaround. it also took a little doing to figure out how to make an exclamation point and the number ‘one’ (it’s the lowercase ‘l’). my pinkies are decidedly weaker than my other fingers, the letter ‘a’ is particularly persnickety. i also have to get used to using ’shift-8′ for the apostrophe. in place of the apostrophe on a computer keyboard, i have a ¢ sign. i actually had to go look that symbol up online, btw. it doesn’t exist on the current keyboards. heh.

and you know what? i hate to say it, because it sounds so cliche, but they just don’t make things like they used to. this thing is one solid unit, beautifully engineered and has the neatest little features. it’s got four levers locking it into the case and another lever will release the hinge so you can take the top off. see on the top there? there’s a little spot for the brush (used to clean the type itself) and also some paper. how cool is that? oh yeah, and it came with its original documentation, too. including the original warranty!

as far as the ribbon goes, i can get some from amazon on different spools, then rewind them onto the spools in the typewriter. until i do that, though, i can apparently soak the current ribbon down with WD-40 and that will moisten the ink back up and help the ribbon last longer. heck, i could even just re-ink this one if i wanted to, though that takes a little more doing and is a bit messier.

now i just have to remind myself to slow down and think while i type. typos are a lot easier on this thing and taking them out is a lot more difficult.

wheeeeee!!!!!