Through The Grapevine

Some of you may have seen on my Instagram stories/feed that this week my...well, my laptop died. Urrggg. Well, it's not totally dead, it blue-screen-of-deathed me and all, but technically it still turns on.

In the middle of a day I had (hypothetically) set aside just for finally submitting my damn query letters, in the middle of finalizing a two sentence long but expertly over considered author bio (in case anyone asked for one), my computer screen just went black. Pew, dead. And it did not come back.

Of course, my planned day of reckoning had already been going haywire-- having to unexpectedly rebuild my website (did you know I have theclosethistorian.com? I do) and do some unplanned remote work for my day job had already majorly encroached upon and marred my plans, but blue-screen-of-death too? Wow, okay universe, now that's kinda just rude.

And of course my book is backed up. I've got it, and believe me-- if I didn't, I would be in a ward somewhere under surveillance (I am certainly not kidding). However, the last copies of my files are from November 6th, and my laptop died on November 12th. That's several days of little edits I want and will never remember, several days of jotting down lines of dialog and details in my notes for the next book I'm working on that I can't just invent over again. It's the researched spreadsheet of agents I was supposed to have queried on Monday. It's several dozen documents, graphics, photos, and files I can't even remember I need just yet because I am trying not to think about it.

I am used to these sorts of things. PC laptops fail. I do have most of my stuff backed up on drives. It's not catastrophic, it just feels that way. Still, I can't exactly afford to buy a new computer which is contributing to my stress. And as sad as it may sound-- I live on my laptop, and without it I feel unmoored. The unknown --are my files gone, or aren't they? How am I supposed to buy a new one? How in the everloving feck is it Thanksgiving next week already? Has made this a...well, a bad week really. It hadn't started off great anyway, and then like a computer going dark, it felt almost like the universe had pulled the power cord on me.

Stop. Do not move forward two spaces and collect 200 dollars, do not roll any dice, do not, you cannot, you won't.

So I dropped my laptop off at a computer repair place after work today and paid them to try and get my data off of it. Then maybe I can get it repaired somehow too, I don't really know yet. Maybe they can retrieve the data, or maybe they can't. Even leaving that machine, the physical limping brick of a computer behind felt very strange. I wrote my first novel on that machine, it means a lot to me even if it is indeed truly dead. "Don't lose it" I want to say to the technicians, "don't break it please." Not knowing sucks. I'm in limbo, in flux. You would think after so many years I would have gotten used to it. But I have not.

So I consoled myself with a stop to buy expensive hand scrub and lotion at Lush on my way home tonight too.

Oh also, I got bangs. If that is not an indication of inner storms than I don't know what is.

Perhaps this forced quiet, this black and blue screen of enforced pause and grey, is the eye of a hurricane, the calm in the center before another whirlwind begins. I am really hoping the other side of the spiral spins upward. At the very least I can know it leads out.

So, yeah...*ahem* This is probably my favorite dress, just ever. I mean...this print? And the shoulder pads? Yes.

I hope all of you are instead doing splendidly. Thank you as always for listening to me complain, but that's what you get for reading my diary eh?


"Night falls fast.
Today is in the past.

Blown from the dark hill hither to my door
Three flakes, then four
Arrive, then many more."

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Dress: Made by me
Coat: Vintage (and faux)
Shoes: Bait Footwear
Hosiery: Amazon
Gloves, Clutch, Jewelry, & Belt: Vintage