Many thanks to the readers who offered moral support, general commiseration and even technical advice in the wake of Friday's computer collapse. Thanks also to my daughter for her interim Lend-Lease policy regarding her MacBook, which, if you've a teenager, you know was no little sacrifice. God only knows the music videos she missed during my 36 hours of blitzcrapped siege.
Early in my time of technical woe I pondered the wisest course, and it came to me in a meditative flash: Fuck it.
Yes my old computer possessed years of accumulated links, notes, etc., and yes they could all be retrieved (probably), but there was something to be said not only for a fresh path and a clean slate, but for the liberating power of letting them go. Old notes gone, new thinking required, perhaps? Plus, I understand nothing of techno-gibberish, and to me my ignorance is bliss; even the thought of parleying with some unintelligible high priest of recovery and resurrection was most dispiriting. Furthermore, I had also decided to switch to a Mac someday, since the new and improved Windows, from what I had seen, is indeed new, but anything but improved.
So, with a burned-over credit card in hand I soldiered yesterday afternoon to the nearest Apple store and this morning I'm gazing at an iMac monitor the size of a multiplex screen -- i.e., their smallest one. I refused to fret over Friday's loss. Only for higher things shall I reserve my preternatural gift for such fretting. In short, Fuck it.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I didn't much feel like writing about politics this morning. That's why.