Crash Bang Boom...I have a love/hate relationship with technology.

Last week my computer went kaput...completely kaput. This was not the uh oh; this was the UH OH I am totally F$@&*D type of ordeal. I bought the G4 seventeen inch laptop back in 2003 and had all of my projects stored on it. Troubleshooting the problem with the user's guide garnered no positive results. Then there was a frantic call to Apple tech support. I was told that the only thing I could do was take the laptop into a data recovery specialist and hope for the best. The technician I spoke with on the phone said my work had a 50/50 chance of coming out alive. All I hoped to recover was the seven pages I had worked on the previous week. I have hard copies of most everything else. However, the last seven pages typed into that computer were part of a path back to consistency I had been lacking for several years.

To sum everything up - the specialists I visited were unable to retrieve any of the data on the hard drive. They said they could fix the computer but what was there, in terms of data, was gone. To say the least, I was crushed. The sense of loss was devastating. I certainly don't need to go through with that bonfire any more! Hard drives are like brakes on a car; they need to be replaced. And it is best to replace them before they go out on you driving down a steep hill!

I only lost seven pages, no big deal. So what if it was the best prose I had written since grad school and had made me excited about writing everyday again. I did not lose any legal pads or Fort Ticonderoga #2 pencils. There are still tools in the studio to create. But damn, it is so easy to make up excuses not to go to the studio right now. I could still be in recovery from the devastating loss last week, my back hurts from working 30+ hours in two days on "Shameless", I have to baby sit the Eli Mongrel who just paces around the studio, there are still a few projects to do around the new apartment, and the season finale of "Bored to Death" awaits on the DVR. But I will remain strong and focused...

Just when everything seemed like it was moving forward in a positive direction too. As much as I don't want to, I need to head over to the studio and get to work. I recall a teacher once telling me if a wall pops up that keeps you from achieving your goals, if you can't climb up and over it, go around it. Seems easy enough. It never used to work before, but that was then and this is now. Today I am going to go to the studio and re-boot myself. Tonight I want to sit on the couch and watch the Redskins game feeling satisfied after a good day's work. Time to dust off one of my typewriters!