Last Tuesday I went to Peet’s to write.
I ordered my coffee, found a cozy armchair to sit in, fired up the old laptop,
and connected to Wi-Fi. Suddenly a restart warning appeared on the screen and
my computer shut down. And then, instead of restarting, it informed me that it
was unable to boot. I stared blankly at the screen. I told myself to be calm. I
explained to myself that I should just try turning it off and then on again. I
felt the panic rising in my chest. I suck at the routine maintenance that
technological devices require. Sync my iPhone? Who needs that? Back up my
documents and photos? Who’s got time?
Well, I’ve hopefully learned my lesson
the hard way. My computer failed to restart because the hard drive crashed. So
I lost everything recent on my computer. The last backup appears to have been
done about two years ago (just for the record, that’s when I got my current
computer). Fortunately all my writing is saved on Dropbox. And a lot of other
important stuff is on Google Docs. But I may be missing some photos and
whatever other random stuff I’ve done on the computer for the past two years. A
lot of the photos were still on my phone, thanks to me sucking at taking them
off permanently when I saved them to the computer (See? Sometimes there are
perks to not preforming proper maintenance).
Thanks to my rockstar boyfriend, my
laptop is back up and running again. He replaced the hard drive, re-installed all of the programs, got the pictures off my phone, found my old backup, etc.,
etc. And because I suck at all the routine maintenance stuff, I’ve begged him
to periodically backup things for me. Some days I hate technology.
I have three critique group “dates” set
up now. One is with a woman who is looking to rejoin a group, one is with a
group that has already been meeting for a while, and one is with a group that
is just starting. I’m fine with the first and third “dates”, but the one with
the group that’s already active makes me totally anxious. It’s like sitting
down at the lunch table with a clique you don’t belong to. Will they like you?
Hate you? Bah!! I just keep reminding myself that it doesn’t really matter. If
we mesh then we mesh. And if not, I have two other “dates” that may be better.
We finally got a membership at the local
climbing gyms here. There are four Touchstone gyms nearby: one in Berkeley, one
in Oakland, and two in San Francisco. We tried out the Berkeley gym over the
weekend. It was decent, but not as nice as the Touchstone gym we’d been
climbing at in LA. But it’ll be nice to belong to a gym again. And being a
member gives me access to yoga (which I haven’t been able to do since I injured
my shoulder) and fitness classes.
I finally got added to the sub system in the district that hired me, but I haven’t picked up a job yet. It’s nice not having to sub if I
don’t want to because it means I can be picky about the schools/grades I
choose. No more subbing in high school and middle school. Woohoo!
The Bridge to Bridge race was on Sunday.
My friend came to visit and to run the race too. We both did really well. I ran
the 12K in two minutes more than it’s been taking me to run 6.5 miles. So that
was pretty exciting. But it still did not inspire me to run seriously again.
Running is fun, but I’d rather climb.
What I’m reading: East of Eden by John Steinbeck and Looking for Alaska by John Green. They are both awesome so far. I
fell in love with John Green’s writing when I read The Fault in Our Stars (which I highly recommend). And I’ve long
been a Steinbeck fan. With both of these books I hardly want to put them down. Call the Midwife has been put on hold
for a bit.
So glad to hear you got your computer back up and running!!! I LOVED Looking for Alaska. You should read Paper Towns next! Oh! Or Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell too. Soooooooo good!!! :)
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