My MacBook died a few weeks ago but I didn't get sad about it until the other day. It all started with a weird 8-bit-looking checkered pattern that would show up on my screen and lead either to strobing or an all-out freeze. Both required a restart, but then my computer stopped booting all together. I checked it into the Genius Bar, slightly worried about switching to my boyfriend's older, slower computer for the next week and how it would impact my work. But at the same time, I was mostly OK with it -- I didn't have a choice, really, and I figured it'd be nice to spend a period of time moving back and forth to a desktop, instead of being chained to a laptop like I usually am. And it really was -- I found that having to get my ass up and work meant I actually worked while on my boyfriend's iMac, as opposed to the usual surfing/writing/brain-wandering that I do while working on my laptop from the couch (this method can make posts take several hours longer than they should). This is not a new discovery. Obviously, you're supposed to have a physical work space that differs from your living space, but there's a difference between being familiar with a cliche and understanding why a cliche is a cliche. Without the potential for distraction shining silvery at me in the corner of my eye, I could pay more attention to movies and books and my boyfriend. Duh, right? Same old story: life still very much on the grid, but a little less enmeshed.
I expected to get my computer back before Labor Day weekend, which I was to spend at my mom's house in Jersey. When I found out I wouldn't, thanks to a part that needed to be ordered and blah blah blah, I despaired (I pleaded with the Genius Bar worker to put a rush on my computer, my voice actually trembling). But that despair quickly faded, too. What my life's continuing computerlessness meant was that it would basically be impossible to work during my mini-vacation...which is exactly the point of a mini-vacation. Viewed in that way, I liked the idea of it staying over a hundred miles away from me. I always relish the time I spend on airplanes after my laptop battery has run out and I have no other choice but to spend a few hours not working. Work-free guitlessness is bliss, a welcome alternative to all those guilt-ridden times that I could be working but am not. Physical impossibility is the only antidote to the heavily connected lifestyle. And you know, it was really great to go to bed and wake up being only concerned about the book I was reading (Mockingjay, which was more devastating than any temporary loss of technology and Linda Lovelace's Ordeal, which was a crock of shit). It was nice to have no other choice but to wait days to post the shot of the bootleg Hello Kitties I snapped on the Wildwood boardwalk. Even if it's completely obvious, this slowing down of time provides relaxation that's worth experiencing. Try it some time.
Since the problem with my computer was with my video card, Apple didn't anticipate the existing data on my hard drive to be an issue. Even if it did become one, I wasn't so worried -- I have a Time Machine plugged in always to handle that kind of worst-case scenario (for the uninitiated, it essentially clones your hard drive -- files, applications and everything -- so that you can pick up right back where you left off if you crash). When Apple called me earlier this week and told me that there was a problem with my drive and that they'd have to replace it, I got a little scared: what if my Time Machine failed me when I needed it most? I found out the answer the next day, when my Time Machine did indeed fail me, forcing me to transfer the data from a year-old Time Machine I had kept after it stopped backing up my system in the event of a worse-than-worst-case scenario just like this one (miraculously it retained the data). This means, at least, that almost all of my applications were restored. So that's nice. It also means that tons of my files are gone forever. I back up movies, music and uploaded projects on other drives (I'm actually somewhat obsessive about doing so on so many different drives to the point where I need some kind of storage for all my media storage). And when you come down to it, a lot of my work is backed up on the Internet, really (very little of what I do isn't immediately posted somewhere) so a lot of crucial stuff is still with me. I'm not completely covered. There are some irretrievable things, like material I was collecting for a new Tumblr idea is gone forever. Back to the collecting board, I guess. The fact that I couldn't resume my computer ownership where I left off made me very sad, and then mad that I'd done exactly what I was supposed to (after previously experiencing a similar crash or two) and I still got fucked, and then I felt stupid for getting so fired up about something so trivial.
Still, it is times like these that make me wonder why I bother to do anything at all -- it seems like it's all so temporary. I feel like my online work has had a lot of setbacks this summer -- YouTube rejected my I'm Not Here To Make Friends '10 video immediately (the product of a year's worth of work) and my secondary YouTube account was yanked just as my Country Hip-Hop Dancing edit was nearing 1 million views. These things are, again, trivial and stuff like view counts is mostly for one's ego anyway (who needs them?). But take that away and I'm left with virtually nothing, except for the joy of creation, I guess. And believe me, that fades quickly.
It's a sucky thing to add to a sucky time of year (hate the end of summer!) but that does not mean the last week has been entirely free of joy. Two sources of non-digital entertainment are below:
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