Hard Drive Goes the Hard Way

I heard the ominous whirring. The fan gunning and wheezing to a stop. But I ignored it and pressed onward. I could feel it dying every time I turned on the computer, its arduous start-up process. And it was made all the more pitiful by the broken hinges that meant I had to prop the lid on the couch arm to use it.

For Christmas, Mom gave me a ridiculously large external hard drive for backing up my photos. I left it in the packaging under the table by the bed until the night that the whirring turned to clicking.

Oh, the click of a withering hard drive.

I panicked, willing it to turn on just one more time. Just long enough for me to plug a USB in and drag all my precious files to safety. But instead, they drowned in a sea of rhythmic clicking. Like a life preserver tossed into a tempest, Mom (who's quite tech savvy) tried to reboot from the system disk. Alas, there was no hope. And so, I sat there on the couch, with my hand on the lid of the laptop and thought of all of the photos of Dillon and Reese and Wilmywood, all of the half-started stories and poems, all of the downloaded-only music, sinking down through the cyberspace abyss.

I carried it to the mall to a rather chaotic looking little shop where a harried Asian lady attempted to start the failed piece of crap. Instead of success, she shook her head sadly and repeated, "I don't know. It's the hard drive. I don't know." And I thought to myself, Don't say it again. And two weeks later, she declared it a lost cause.

I had flashbacks of the Sad Mac and poor Carrie Bradshaw's lost files. The Barrister guided me out of the mall while I alternately tried to console myself and contemplated quickly dispatching myself in front of a moving vehicle. I sat in the car, the hunk of plastic and circuits tucked inside the Belk bag that held my newly purchased "fat" shorts (adding insult to injury), and looked out the window. I felt stupid. Hard drive failure had happened to me at work. And I knew that the laptop was on its last leg. I remarked nearly every time I started it up that I needed to back it up. Instead, I let myself down.

Now, the hard drive is sitting on the dining room table, deftly removed from its casing by my mom. There's a box in one of the chairs. There's some packaging materials I've tossed on top for when I get ready to ship it to the ridiculously high-priced data recovery center. There's probably a thin film of dust on it - it's been weeks.

So why I haven't I sent it? I don't know. It's not that I don't want those memories back - I desperately want to be able to look again at the photos I took of Dillon at the playground the day before the hard drive died and the pictures I took at the work retreat and the autumn leaves at last year's trip to Valle Crucis and mine and The Barrister's Valentine's Day and, perhaps most desperately, the pictures I took of the Grace Street apartment that can never be replicated. I want the words I never finished, and the drafts of my thesis that lead me to what I published. And yet, if I don't send it, they are still alive, somewhere in cyberspace limbo. And if I do send it, I might have to hear that they're gone forever, little bytes of life vanished as though they never happened.

How to Be Late to Work (or Perfecting the Art of Piddling)

* Note that your cell phone memory card is full. Look through and delete 10-12 text messages from your phone.

* Overhear the new Kate Perry video on VH1. Stand slack-jawed in front of the TV and watch.

* Decide today is the day to experiment with accessories. One necklace or two? Long or short? Should I wrap it around twice like a choker first?

* Pet the cat.

* Get inspired to put all the shoes in your floor back in their boxes.

* Realize that you've been standing motionless under the hot shower for an undetermined amount of time, possibly in another dimension.

* Contemplate the outfits that you could wear but don't want to wear.

* Make a list of CDs you've been meaning to buy.

* Snooze.

* Try on sample lipstick from Clinique. Decide it doesn't work and wipe it off. Be reminded that you've been thinking about buying some fingernail polish. Ponder whether or not to just wait for spring.

* Lose your keys. And your cell phone. Where did you put it after deleting those text messages?

* Leave your lunch on the counter. When you go back inside to retrieve it, give in to the compulsion to also fix a travel mug of coffee.

* Be me.

Resolutions in the Pot Nine Days Old

I recognize that we've already bypassed the first week of January without me posting any New Year's resolutions. Last year, I had a clear resolution - a resolution that was important enough to me to keep. And I did - at least, I committed to my very best effort to find the place to be happy. Not physically...not in the sense of moving or staying, of where I am...but more a state of being. And now that I'm there, I'm resolving to stay there. So this is less about resolutions and more of a to do list for staying the course I chose last year.

* Get my passport

* Travel more - am already tackling this by planning trip to SF with Nik and Jenn and Cleveland Rocks with Kim

* Practice my photography (on subjects including and other than Dillon)

* Stop being afraid of new people

* When I say, "Someday, I'd like to..." really think about when someday might be and how to get there

* Buy (yipe!) a house

* Be kind to other people

* Have perspective - about blessings, about all the things that could happen that don't, about all the places I'm not, about all the places I am

* Learn

* Get to work on time more often; leave work on time more often

* Snuggle Kudzu every day

* Blog it out

Strange Things I Do

1) Sit in the dark. I don't like the dark. But I will sit on the couch and start watching TV or surfing the internet and it will get dark outside and very dark inside, and I will wait hours to turn the light on.

2) Not put garbage in its rightful place. For example, this morning, I put inserts into a pair of shoes that didn't quite fit. The packaging? On the coffee table. Wore a new shirt the other day and cut the tag out. Left it on the desk. I will wad up a piece of paper and throw it in the floor. That's wrong.

3) Put off eating dinner. For a ridiculously long time. I'll consider it and weigh my options and then sort of try to convince myself that maybe I'm not hungry. Just because I'm lazy.

4) Write a to do list. Do three of the nine things on it. Rewrite the to do list and add four things to it. Do two things (neither from the original list). Wad up the page and throw it in the floor. Things do not get done this way.

Done & Undone

Done:
* Stoned kitty sleeping by cat-nipped scratcher near the kitchen
* Filmed various important Wilmywood locations: first office, first apartment, Morton Hall, beach
* Sushi
* Long bath
* Palm Sunday service
* Watching She's the Man (twice)
* Identifying Amanda Bynes ' next teen movie project and duly notifying Penelope
* Almost entire bag of Skittles
* Afternoon nap
* Marathon procrastination
* Agreeing to tap dance at Kim Shable's wedding

Undone:
* Dishes
* Taking the trash out
* Sending out resumes
* Unfinishable proposal I'm writing for work
* Packing
* Bank deposit
* iPod loading
* General life planning
* Learning to tap dance

Just Doing My Job

At work and currently thinking about

* The enormous gathering of dust and Kudzu hair I noticed under the bookcase this morning

* Needing stamps to mail bills that will drain my bank account

* A second cup of coffee at 11:11 a.m.

* Lunch at downtown hotel which inevitably consists of scary stuffed chicken and vegetable medley

* Dirty car

* Weekend to-do list (dishes, floors, bathroom, clothes pile, blogging, real simple catchup, figuring out how to wear a headband without looking 14)

* Spending too much money last weekend

* Gary Jules "Mad World"

* Going back to bed

Update: I was just reminded that I am also thinking about how much I love my graphic designer, S.

Thoughts for Saturday

It's almost 7:30...here are the things I've thought about today:

1) Taking a walk (but not taking one)

2) The gay man at the office came out yesterday - and admitted that he doesn't love my haircut. I'm officially growing it out.

3) How long it will take my hair to grow back out

4) Going to the grocery store (but not going)

5) Sadness over the plate I knocked to the floor off the couch arm and broke into several sadly irreparable pieces

6)How everything in my house that is edible seems to be stale

7) Having seen two drunk college students almost have sex on Front Street last night between the post office and a lunch-only cafe called Betty B's

8) Amusement at Kudzu's new habit of laying on the window sill and sleeping with his face smashed up against the pain or the frame

9) How wonderful it is, sometimes, to have not talked to anyone all day

10) Going to the library to get a book on tape to listen to while cleaning (and not doing either)

11) My hair looks best on Saturdays when no one is going to see it

12) That if I put all the things back in the corner where the ceiling leaked, someone will show up to spackle, paint and sand the ceiling - all over my stuff

13) Why the new Killers album isn't coming out until October

14) How to lose 12 pounds before I have to wear a bridesmaid dress without really trying (or giving up chips, cookies and ice cream)

15) Why I can find time to blog, make my way through 96 episdoes of S&TC, eat, drink, sleep, work, and make a gigantic mess of my apartment, but I can't find time to read a book

16) That I kind of missed taking the new car for a drive today while I was busy staying in

17) Sometimes Kudzu knows just when to come and get in my lap

18) Where to get to dinner from (refrigerator not included)

19) Whether or not I should start the 6-hour Pride & Prejudice, which I suddenly have a yen to do

20) The list of things I should be doing is growing longer the longer I sit on this couch and blog