On the Road

Today, I'm writing from a beautiful public library in Oregon, where I'm using an "adaptive technology" computer. It has a nice big screen, a copy of ZoomText (VERY fancy zooming software for the PC), and lots of gadgets I would never need.

It's fun to be able to type and see every letter I write -- not typical for me at all -- but I don't think I could get used to it. It's like hearing your voice echoed back to you as you speak. It's distracting, and it makes me a little self-conscious. I'd rather just write stuff and not care too much about the previous word. As I say, though: very fancy. I can see why they charge hundreds of bucks for it.

The first few times I came here, I checked with someone at the desk first, making sure it was OK for me to use it. Today, I decided to just sit down; and, sure enough, someone came over to say, "Just so you know, this is for people who can't use any of the other computers."

"That's me," I replied. "I'm legally blind." And that was the end of that.

I really should take it as a compliment that so few people guess that I have anything like a "disability." I'm 6-foot-2, able-bodied, in good shape, and under thirty (for a little while, anyway). None of that translated to "disabled," and even people who constantly work with the visually impaired can forget how deceptive appearances can be.

The funny thing about this expensive software that I'm using is the speech capability. It does like to talk. It took me ten minutes to figure out how to get it to stop telling me what my mouse was pointing at, or what word I was typing. But I can't figure out how to get it to read a freaking web page. I'm sure it can, really... but didn't they design these things for old people, who are scared to even press a button? I am not one of those people. I should be able to read a web page, even in Oregon. This is a free country, right? Are you with me, people?

Eh. Maybe next time.