Without Purpose or Function [1986]

[Letter, 21 June 1986]

M

y goddamn typewriter’s broken, by the way, which is why I’m slowly and painfully writing this instead of typing it, as I would infinitely prefer to be doing. I’m waiting for the shop to report back on it—getting it fixed seems likely to cost as much as buying a new typewriter. But I have a massive half-finished project that I am terrified of having to re-do—it should be finished on the same typewriter if at all possible. (At least on the same model, but they’re not that common.) Complicating things is the fact that my brother has taken the word-processor to his shop to write a shop manual with, so I don’t have any fucking tools to work with. Makes me feel totally useless, absolutely without purpose or function.