(no subject)

Well, there's good news and strange news and bad news.

The bad news is that my hard drive is slowly frying itself, so it's definitely time for a replacement. The good news is that I'm broadcasting from it right this minute, since Lucky managed to get it limping along. I'm shifting all my files off (three 1gig jumpdrives and counting!) and making a list of programs I'm going to have to locate and install all over again. This is just what you have to do when you change computers, even if all you're changing is the hard drive.

The strange news is everything else. There's so much to talk about, the trip and my first visit to an Apple Store (surreal doesn't begin to cover it) and Mum's mood swings. And also excellent Italian food. Well, gather ye rosebuds...

I left my phone charger in the hotel room in Chicago. I believe I've lost my firefox bookmarks (again) and I'm not sure if Explorer won't open because it's a bitch or because it legitimately can't cope with Gmail right now.

I've had much larger things in my life go wrong, but rarely have I had so many go wrong at once. It's exhausting just being here, and I can't believe I have another six days of it. If Bernard actually does leave I'll have to come back for Christmas, too, which will be an utter, utter nightmare.

It's like being forced to spend all day watching a play about people self-destructing, and there are too fucking many of those to begin with. I can see the irrational, emotionally impulsive decisions as they happen, and I can't even give decent advice because decent advice almost always involves some modicum of self-control, and Mum has a personal grudge against the idea that she should have to control her emotions.

I've cleared off everything from the hard drive that I can tonight; there's still three files of photos, a handful of videos, and about half my music library. I'm not quite sure how I'm getting all that off the hard drive if I can't get my gmail shell drive to work and I'm out of jumpdrives, but I'll find a way.

(no subject)

This morning:

Me: Hey, Mum, is the striped towel hanging in the bathroom clean?
Her: Do you need a clean towel? It's clean, or there's some more clean towels hanging on the door. And I just did a load of towels so there are some in the garage as well.
Me: Uh...okay...but I'm just going to use the one already in the bathroom. *pause* Do you need a hug?
Her: Apparently so.

Lucky told me that last weekend Mum turned to him and said "I need to call my mother." Gran's been dead for about ten years.

Fortunately, she has Xanax, and she seems to derive some benefit from therapy, so she goes regularly.

I'm actually at home in Austin right now, but we're going out to Bernard's school tomorrow and we'll be there all weekend. On the plus side, I've managed to clear all the data off my hard drive, so it's secure if I bluescreen again. In total it came to seven gig of memory, and surprisingly the biggest portion wasn't videos or music but photographs. I've been working in digital photography for eight years, both as a professional theatrical photographer and a tourist, and perhaps it's time I culled a little bit. :D

I wrote a sonnet ages ago about the peril of preserving information on modern data-storage hardware, especially from the viewpoint of an archaeologist in our distant future; they may not have the ability to read a CD or a Jumpdrive, but a piece of carved rock is always a piece of carved rock. I don't advocate going back to the way it was done under Augustus or anything, but when something like this happens it does make me think about how my life is recorded.

And then I start thinking about "internet archaeologists" digging up fragmented corrupted files in the distant future, and I want to write another novel, which I think is just proof that my mental self-preservation instincts are still intact.

Commentary post-hack: IRONY.