Damn it, Darn it, and Yay!

I got a new laptop.

As best as I can figure, my trusty, old Toshiba laptop was about seven years old… Or maybe eight.

I had WANTED to write my first book on that machine and thus feel like I had EARNED a new computer. Damn it.

Alas, that did not happen. I wrote a whole lot of pages on that computer, just none that have resulted in a published book yet. (Perhaps because I haven’t shared those pages with anyone other than a few close friends….friends who coincidentally have nothing to do with the publishing world, darn it.)

I typed away for a great many hours on that chunky, clunky machine, emailing the Word doc to myself every few hours – should my computer decide to turn off and never turn back on again, should my computer not recover from its frequent “Word is not responding” messages.

I have never before purchased a new computer while my previous one was still alive and well. I’ve never purchased a new computer without first paying a lot of money to a ‘computer hospital’ (or some such thing) to revive my old machine just long enough to rescue a few files from the desktop.

So, Matt convinced me that we’d actually be saving money by proactively buying a new machine before my current one was all the way dead. 

It took all of about ten minutes to purchase the thing, thanks in part to the Best Buy sales associate who really had no interest in talking me through any of the available features or discussing operating speeds or otherwise advising me on my purchase.

“I really only do this once a decade,” I told the saleslady, trying to stall the process a few minutes, wanting this shopping trip to feel a bit more significant. (It takes me longer to choose a pair of jeans…)

I ultimately left with an adorable, sleek HP laptop – yay! (Did you know Toshiba doesn’t even make laptops anymore?)

I’ve got all my writing (and real estate stuff) moved to my new machine – with Pearl’s help – and Matt’s help when I tried to wedge my USB stick into my new machine upside-down. (The other way had been upside-down just a second earlier.)

So I’m working on my final, final edits before I send my story out into the world. And, something better come of all those pages before I have to buy another new computer, damnit!