Utnapishtim 3 (Trois)

A long, long time ago I bought an IBM ThinkPad on eBay and named it Utnapishtim (Utni, for short).  Utnapishtim is the guy who survived the flood in the Mesopotamian flood myth, and the gods offered him the gift of immortality.  (His wife, too.  She bakes him bread.  Sounds thrilling.)

I figured the laptop would last forever, since he'd obviously take on his namesake's mythical traits.  Surprisingly enough, it didn't work.  No bread, either.  Well, I should mention that Utni's still alive.  But his battery is dead, his bios battery is also gone, and he can't remember his own name.  Very sad and geriatric of him.  (Makes you wonder how the real Utnapishtim is doing.) 

So forth I went and purchased Utnapishtim II.  Utnu, for short.  He was a cute little iBook G4, and I loved him oh so very much.  I wore out the letters on his keyboard. Once, he got sick and I panicked.  This is the conversation I had with the tech guy (TG):

Me (calm) : "Yes, he hasn't been booting since yesterday."

TG (confused) : "He?"

Me (embarrassed) : "Um, yes.  I have a strong affinity with him."

TG (redefining reality) : "Ok.  So it, um, he doesn't boot?"

Me (worried) : "No.  He screams."

TG (polite but difficulty adapting) : "Screams?"

Me (wishing didn't feel Utnu was own person) : "Um, yes.  Well, he beeps three times.  Yes.  And he has kernel panics."

TG (back in realm of comfortable language) : "Those aren't good."

Me (too much information?) : "No, because when he panics, I panic.  It's really not a good scene."

TG (good old scout try) : "Oh.  Yes.  I can see that.  Well, ok, well, ship um, him in, and um, he'll see a, um, doctor.  Yes.  A laptop doctor."

I also sent him flowers while he was at the laptop hospital.  To Utnu, not the tech guy, though I hope he enjoyed them, too.  

Utnu at his favourite Second Cup.

When Utnu was geriatric, we went on a date to a Genius Bar at the Apple Store, and were informed that he was a good geriatric computer, but dying nonetheless.  He soon after clunkered out, after 3.5 years of fateful service.  I cried, I'll admit it.  To be fair, the unfinished Sorceress of Shadows was also trapped on him.  My brother, bless his patient technical soul, recovered all my information, but Utnu had some terrible issues and became Zombie Utnu (mostly because my brother wrote that on him).  Utnu was mentioned in the acknowledgements of Destiny's Blood.  He worked countless hours on it, too.

I needed a replacement quick - my manuscript was due soon!  So I ran out and bought a cheap netbook.  I named him Thoth.  He was cute, but he wasn't part of my Utnapishtim lineage.  I was convinced Thoth would die the day after his one-year warranty ended.  I was wrong.  He died three weeks after it ended.  Very sad.  Mostly because, once again, I was on a tight writing deadline.

But, possessing wicked laptop death powers of prediction, I had already started saving for Utnapishtim Trois (which is three in French.  Being bilingual gets me more options for cute nicknames!)  Utnapishtim Three, you see, would make Utni, which already existed.  Utnapishtim Trois, however, makes for a cute Utnois.   Not only had I started saving for him, but I'd gone to meet him a few weeks beforehand.  It's couth to meet your laptops at least once before bringing them home.

Utnois is a cute MacBook Air, 11 inches.  I always hesitate with first generation beasts, but he was so cute I simply couldn't resist.  He's extremely light, I enjoy the keyboard, he has wicked battery life and did I mention he was cute?  I signed up for the best warranty I could find, which covers replacement batteries, a necessity since it's one of those annoying integrated ones.  And, if this first generation clunkers out within four years, I get a whole new one!  Not that I want Utnois to die.  Oh no.  Not for 3.99 years, anyway!

So welcome to the family, Utnois!

That was just a photo op.  Utnois does not sleep with kittens.  Utnois is not pro-fuzz.

Saintdom (or some such thing)

I felt pretty saintly this morning.  I helped pick up escaped newspapers downtown and bought a coffee for someone who had forgetten their wallet. To complete my ascension to Heaven, I purchased a Soy Chai Latte (see last Friday's post).  It went downhill when I took a swig from the heavenly drink:

Me: {expletive} that's good!
Turn around to see young woman with child (who the heck brings their children downtown at 6:30 am?  No one's had their coffee yet - it's a dangerous place!)
Me:  {expletive!}I mean, um, sorry!
Shuffles out mumbling.

Seriously.  That's child endangerment, I say.

At least I'm off to the convent tonight.  That will surely help my seared soul.  I'll chat with Giant Jesus, resist the urge to look into graves (one can only hope) and possibly get my butt scratched by a nun again.  Well, okay, that's probably not saintly, but at least I'll get lots of work done on the new novel.  That'll have to do!

Friday Afternoon Gushiness (Because it's my blog and I can. So there.)

Living is great.  And it’s a bitch.  There are times when we soar above it all, in love with the world, our friends, our family, our car, our jobs and our ability to twirl.  When everything seems to be going just right and the right words come to us at  just the right time and the right person touches our arm in just that right spot and OMG everything is so… right.

And we’re full of energy and we just want to take on the world and make it submit to our desires and will.  None of this compromise stuff.  Take the bull by the horns or the horns by the bull or whatever it is you want to do at that exact moment because it’s your moment, and no one else’s, and that’s just magical.  We love life, and it loves us.

Then there are those other times.  You know, the times the walls close in on us.  We’re scared, and alone, and angry, and bored, and we just wish we were somewhere else, or someone else, and reboots or undos existed on this plane as well.  When our hearts feel like they’ll never heal, or our hopes never be reborn, and let’s not even speak of dreams – when did we ever have those?

We shrivel up inside and we put on a brave face to get through the day, just one more day, one foot in front of the other, just… keep going.  One step, waiting for that dawn to break, forgetting what the heck it looks like, and who said it broke when it was darkest, because it’s damn dark and I don’t see any dawn breaking.  We hate life, and it hates us.

And isn’t it all so amazing?  When you really think about it?   I mean, imagine the breadth of your life.  All of those moments that forged you, whether you want to admit it or not.  That’s your landscape, right there.That's you.

Remember when you were elated (or confused/disappointed) by that first kiss?  The first time you accomplished one of your goals, not your parents or teachers’ goals?  Or the tenth time you did, and still felt just as great?  Or the fifteenth time you broke up (if it’s with the same person, get a clue), and it hurt just as much when you’re thirty as it did when you were eighteen?   That time you laughed so hard it echoed within the hollowness of your own being until the laughter turned to bitter sobs?  (Or maybe that's just me.)  The first time you were told you were beautiful and actually believed it?

Isn’t it all so wonderfully introspective?

I’m definitely having one of those days. I think it was triggered by the discovery of soy chai lattes at Second Cup.  It’s out of this world, really.  I’m in love with it, and I’m having a hard time containing my love, and since I’m not currently in a situation where I can (or should) hug the people around me, I’m retreating into memories.   Both the good and the bad, and I love it all right now.

I’m thinking back on the people who made this life great, and who continue to make it great, whether they’re still there or not, and I’m falling in love with them all over again, and with everything in my life, not just the wonderful people - my laptop, my cats, my bed and my new couch, the curtains in the living room, the colour of my roomy’s hair, and the littlest things make me entirely too happy, and the past is a wonderful painting but the future is my canvass and I can’t wait to discover it because MAN it’s gonna be fun.  I’ll make sure of it.  In a giant run-on sentence.

See?  Psychotic little gushy moment of love, which I thought I’d share.

Yes, indeed, the Second Cup soy chai latte is apparently just that good.

…Second Cup should seriously sponsor my blog.

My Second Cup Buddy

I have a buddy at Second Cup. She’s a writing buddy, to boot. I have to admit though that I don’t actually know her name. She’s a beautiful older woman, in her fifties, with long hair that’s at once white and silver in the sunlight, with a thin under-layer of the dark brown it must have once been.

Every weekend morning, when I’m at Second Cup, I know she’ll show up. Maybe half an hour to an hour after me. She orders her coffee, she sits by or near me in the coveted window seats. If I’m not engrossed in writing, she catches my eye and we smile at each other in way of greeting.

She settles in and she begins to write. She writes longhand on napkins and scraps of paper. I type away on my laptop. I’m curious about what she writes, and I figure one day I might find out. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we both sit down and write.

She’ll watch my laptop when I hit the bathroom (I’m usually there for at least three drinks, one drink on the hour to earn my stay), and I trust her to do it. She usually leaves before me. Sometimes I see her go and smile, other times I look up and she’s already gone, quietly. Once in a while we exchange pleasantries, when both of us are at a writing crossroad. But never once did we ask any type of personal question.

I don’t know her name. I have no clue what she writes. But still, I consider her one of my best writing buddies. The trick, I think, is that we both show up to write. She’s consistent. It’s like we each know someone else will be there to write with us, and we won’t be so alone with our stories. When her hand flies over the recycled paper napkins, I find my fingers typing faster as well, as though her muse inspires mine. And the reverse is true, too. I’ve seen my muse kick hers awake.

When her writing doesn’t go well, she doodles. Usually a large messy circle as she stares out the window at the passersby. I wonder what she thinks then. I wonder if she’s thinking of what her characters are doing, of what she’d prefer to be doing, or of how she’ll eventually get published or, for all I know, of her latest New York Times #1 Bestseller.

I really don’t know, and she’s never offered or asked in turn. I think, in the end, what matters for both of us is the fact that we both show up and write. And we watch each other’s stuff to hit the washrooms.

That alone, methinks, will seal a friendship for life.