This week’s newsletter is a guest post from our friend, and frankly, companion, Jesse Aaronson. Enjoy!
His keystrokes are the stuff of legend…
His oafish thumbs feared far and wide…
When he hits the send button they tremble…………….
I have a problem.
It’s a problem I used to think I could overlook. A problem I thought made me cute, or funny, or maybe even made my friends chuckle and say “this dude’s thumbs! what’s going on????” I used to think if I just ignored this problem long enough it might disappear, vanishing into the horizon as my swift and dexterous fingers grew stronger and stronger with each passing hour.
I used to believe my problem was no problem at all. And I was able to live my life free from the suffocating grasp of anxiety.
I was wrong.
I, Jesse Arlow Aaronson, stand here before you, the reader, on the Seventh Day of Fifth Month in the Year Two Thousand Twenty-One, an open book, ready to own up to my number one greatest flaw in the hopes that I can begin taking the steps towards a brighter and more coherent tomorrow.
Here goes. Big deep breath.
I Fucking Suck At Typing.
I’m so bad at it. Like sooooo soo sooo bad. It’s actually ridiculous. Once, in a group chat, I was absolutely flamed by the boys who accused me being so bad on purpose. They wondered how anyone could possibly be this bad at typing.
Here’s an example:
Here’s another:
I don’t even know anyone named Igor. I actually really wish I did, though. It would be sick to have a friend named Igor. Wait—now that I think about it—I recently tried to get a tennis lesson for my girlfriend from a guy named Igor. How cool would that have been? “Yeah just worked on my groundstrokes with Igor for an hour, the weather was great.” Damn…
I digress.
As is probably obvious from above examples, I am guilty (often!) of firing texts full of incomprehensible mumbo jumbo into the ether. You might ask why not proofread before hitting send? It’s just another second or two! And to that I would reply:
And I’d follow it up with a curt little
This issue doesn’t make sense to me, mostly because I consider myself a pretty staunch perfectionist. I’m also a Very Good Speller (but I’ll save that for my next contribution). I’m hard on myself when I don't do things they way they were meant to be done. I try and remember all of my friend’s birthdays. I freak out when, three or four tracks in to a new album from a band I love, I realize I’ve been listening on shuffle, completely compromising the artistic vision of the musician.
I try and take care in all of the things I do. Except, apparently, when it comes to the texted word. When it comes to texting, I’m not afraid to put this bad boy out in the world:
Somehow the “Delivered” in the above message feels pointed. Like it was put there to mock me.
These mistakes have had real life implications, too. A friend browsing my professional website was forced to break difficult news to me about a typo with potentially career-risking implications:
did this mf just say stage combar…
A different friend texted me around the same time alerting me that the name “Arturo” was spelled “Aruturo” on my resume. Worst of all, perhaps, was when a real-life casting professional alerted me to the fact that I had misspelled the name of a well-respected New York theater director right there on the page in bolded ink—just days before an audition in front of that very director.
It’s all fun and games until Stephan Speelberg blacklists you from Hollywood for sending an email asking if he and Erik Banner would be interested in collaborating on your spec-sequel to 2005 political thriller Munich.
I would be willing to put money on the existence of a Google Analytics Team devoted entirely to figuring out what the fuck I’m keying into my search bar on a day-to-day basis. Most searches look like this:
Why is the period so close to the spacebar!!!!!!
I recently tried to take Ritam’s recommendation of a cool new show on Amazon and came up with this:
Close! But no cigar.
My problem used to be exclusive to the iPhone format. I was pretty used to the keyboard of my MacBook, and could perform at around 92% accuracy, if I had to guess. But the walls of my finger-haven came crashing down when I got a new laptop and was forced to adjust to the sensitivities of a brand new keyboard. This, you might imagine, was my worst nightmare.
Unfortunately this is a very good point. These keys have been the same my whole life.
To be honest it feels like my typo-strewn texts have started haunting me. My prowess for dumbtyping has taken on a meta-ness recently and it’s getting weird.
As I sit here writing this I’ve been asked to scan the final proof copy of my Dad’s cookbook (quick plug for Morty Aaronson! He’s been working on this thing for a long time coming and it’s on sale now! You can follow him on instagram @ToughestTable!) for any last minute typos that might have been missed in the editing process. So I’m typing this (careful not to make any mistakes) while simultaneously picking through almost 300 pages of words with a fine tooth comb looking for any errant word. Spooky vibes, no?
And these typos have come closer to you than you might think, dear reader. Take these on-theme mishaps as evidence:
Was I trying to telegraph something about my own personal feelings on the content of the Newsletter? Or, rather about the
For the record, it was a great newlesster that week. You can take my word for it.
Sometimes even I think it might all be part of a larger scheme in my life. I can’t ignore the signs, like this one from just a few hours ago:
So here I am. Typing this newleyter to you all as promised.
Where do we go from here? To be honest I don’t know the answer. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up for the first time ready to send perfectly composed messages. Or maybe I’ll continue on in the way I always have. The way I know best.
I’ll leave you with this Ancient Greek proverb:
Thanks fort reading
Nabeel’s Footnote
It’s nice to see someone be so honest with themselves. As someone frequently on the receiving end of these ancient hieroglyphics, you start to wonder…did I pick the wrong friend? Is this how Megan Fox types (club thumb reference)? Is this mf’s fingerprint just dummy thicc?
Alas, no. Jesse is just a beautiful, unique specimen—one blessed with thespic excellence and huge fits. It’s a shame about his typing game though.
Related: I have a friend who types on her iPhone with a thumb on the left and her index finger on the right. So, like, her right hand is just hovering above the phone while she alternates between left thumb and right index finger. Insane.
Ritam’s Footnote
Do you guys think that Covid is from the Wuhan Institute of Virology?