Saturday, July 07, 2007

Crash

My computer crashed Thursday night. It wouldn't start in safe mode, normal mode, last working configuration. Nada.

Crash.

After a couple of hours on the phone Friday with Gateway support, my computer is back up, but as a blank shell. (I would like to thank the reboot for the three free months of Norton it generated, as my actual subscription ran out last week.) Thank you, jeeezus, my writing is backed up (let's here it for wee little thumb drives and Google Documents, amen, amen!) I've lost a few purchases I made on iTunes and not yet backed up (and some $22 software will allow me to put everything that's on my iPod back on my computer), so that's not a major loss.

But there is one thing I'd forgotten.

My photos.

Fuck.

Not being a very good photographer, I hadn't really thought much about them. But now, they're all gone, except for a handful that I've put up on my blog here and there.

All gone now, and it's my fault.

It's a mistake I won't make again, for sure, but still...

Funny thing is, I'm not as upset about any of this as I would have been before all the rest of the crud that's fallen on my head happened. Now, it's an "Awww, crap! Eh... who wants coffee?" sort of thing. I'll get over it. I'll take new photos.

Things are relative these days. I'm sort of operating on a "one day at a time" system for the time being. Anyone who's had bad back problems will tell you, the pain can be so intense, you can't function very well, and it can depress the hell out of you. I woke up yesterday, feeling crippled beyond belief, and walked into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and didn't like a damn thing I saw. Tired, haggard, fat, lonely, broke... I hated what reflected back, both outwardly and inwardly. I know part of that was the back pain generating more than its share of my self-impression.

But a lot of it wasn't.

I've been through a lot of crap in the past few years, for sure. Family deaths, Job X, blind eye, bankruptcy...

"So, how's the decade been for you, Merujo?"

"Oh, bloody freaking marvelous, thanks!"

But is life supposed to just be about surviving? That doesn't seem to be enough of a good reason, to me. Survival, with just tiny moments of happiness dotting the horizon - it just really doesn't seem to be enough.

What I would give to go back to the Florida Keys for a week or so, like I did back in 2001. No money worries. No health worries. Just me, some Hemingway, and the fish and the lizards and the six-toed cats and coastal storms echoing out over the ocean, with nothing to stop the rolling thunder and the unearthly lightning.

I dunno. Right now, I feel like a dried-out husk of the person I was a few years ago, and I'd very much like to be her again.

Maybe I'll feel better when my back stops hurting. Maybe I'll feel slightly less oppressed after my bankruptcy hearing this week. Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe it's time for me to be a bit of a blank computer myself. Fill my head with some new images. New snapshots of a better life with a different mirror.

Can someone push my reset button, please?

I'm tired.

6 comments:

Heather Meadows said...

M, I'm so sorry to hear about your photos. As you know, I lost a great deal of my own photography in the fire--including my honeymoon Japan photos, which were soooo much better than my Japan photos from 2001. Every now and then I will think about one of those pictures, and then remember that I don't have it anymore. I also lost the photo I used to make my original blog header, which annoyed me so much that I ended up changing it.

Anyway, to make a long ramble even longer, I know what you're going through with that, and I wanted to help. So you should find a nice email from SmugMug in your gmail account. It's a great service; I'm extremely happy with it. So if you just get into the habit of sticking your photos there when you take them, you'll have an online backup.

Obviously this won't help with the photos you've lost, but it's something for the future :)

Claire said...

Dude that sucks.

You may be able to get your purchased music back from iTunes. I remember a post from Wil Wheaton about this. Ah here:

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/09/apple_gave_me_b.html

Sounds promising.

hope your back feels better soon!

Janet Kincaid said...

Merujo: I understand how you feel. Boy, do I understand.

There has to be more to life than, as you point out, just surviving. Like you, I want to be that person I was when I first arrived in this nucking futz town six years ago. I miss that person.

Here's to us and getting over this hump of crap and back to what we love about ourselves!

paulnojustpaul said...

Aw Merujo, dear Merujo, so many unfair things knocking you around. It's just so fracking (can I say fracking here?) unfair! You of all people deserve good things to happen to you. Really wish I could say or do something that might help. All I can do is say this:

You are beautiful. I know you don't believe that right now but trust me on this. You have many, many people out there whose lives are better and brighter just knowing you. I should know, I'm one of them. You make me believe that humanity has a chance; that we're not just a bunch of self-absorbed, two-dimensional 'me first' lemmings.

I believe in you, Merujo. And I'm as ever honoured to (figuratively) stand right by your side, to be your friend and to know you.

And I know I'm just one of many.

Please know that there are many out there who are wishing karma would just once glance your way and say 'oh crap! I'm sorry, meant to make all that up to you...'

Things will get better. Really.

[big big big hug!]

Shafa said...

Hey, Merujo, don't blow $22 on an iPod music retrieval program. There's a free one that works really great that I use.

http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/musicrescue/

Anonymous said...

Play the lottery before the hearing. ;)

So sorry to hear. I'd be ticked - of course I haven't backed up in a month, so I'm plugging in the new drive as we speak.

Your luck better turn or I'm coming down there to open up a can on some one - or give you a hug -one of the two things.