It is not the hard drive. It is the motherboard. The friggin' heart and soul of the laptop itself.
I feel legless, armless. I bang my forehead against the keyboard at my local Internet hovel. A sunless hallway, air stained by smoke, and the keys ALL wrong. As German keys insist on being.
I cannot check my emails when I rise. Nor when I retire. Nor the habitual hundred times in between. I cannot SKYPE (no verbal contact with you Amis). I cannot blog (madly) after midnight. Nor texture every at-home hour with iTunes. I cannot download This American Life. Nor Speaking of Faith. Nor Leonard Lopate. I cannot, worst of all, pick at my memoir, juggling this word, serrating that, sliding one sentence up, another one sideways. Nor can I march forward into snow-white pages.
Okay, that last task? Yes. There is such a thing as: fountain pen (lavender ink). And moleskin notebook (college-ruled).
There is such a thing as: Everything happens for a reason. Or at least, the death of a laptop, and the timing of said death, does.
That is what my Serbo-Croatian literary hot stuff friend believes. I don't disagree.
All I've done for five long weeks is shape-shift Chapter
Six on-screen. Massage, slice, reorder. A set of scenes that REFUSE a
solution. Likely they don't belong at all.
Now? Forced suddenly (unwillingly) free. Nowhere to go but blinking,
squinty-eyed into the bright blank glare of Chapter Seven. Do you see
how I limp? As if my ankle's still shackled.
If we are wrong, my friend and I, it hardly matters. Finding a reason for the Sony death, and bewitching it into metaphor, makes you feel better. Which also applies to the men who leave you. And that has to be good enough. Or at least, that's all there is to do.
But let us pause here. For a heartbeat of self-pity. Because:
1. Health busted.
2. Sleep busted.
3. Heart busted.
4. Entire order of the universe busted -- due to BAD news from home.
And now featuring:
5. Laptop (most vital tool I own, more so even than my BabyBliss hairdryer) busted.
The prognosis is bad. The Vaio, purchased as it was in the states, cannot be serviced, nor its motherboard replaced, in Deutschland. Leaving me legless, armless, for quite some time. Also: The warranty ended a year ago. The cost of a new motherboard? Nearly that of a brand-new laptop.
Options: Replace the motherboard on my colicky, sputtery Vaio and risk further breakdowns in a country where it can't be fixed? Purchase a new PC in Germany, where the prices are prohibitve and I don't have the Euros to spare anyways? Buy a new one in the states and hit this snag all over again?
Or...buy a MacBook. In America. For pleasant American prices. With a three-year warranty. Which also counts in Berlin.
Wait. Did I say MacBook? No! I am... I was... I want to be... Eternal PC Devotee. Help!
It's all his fault. He, more enamored of the Apple brand than I am even of my cat. More loyal to it, too. How he cradled that iPhone box. Breath-held, gently lifted the lid. Palmed and fingered each smooth white part. "Even the packaging is flawless," he crooned.
A starry-eyed ad for Apple, he was. A walking rant at Microsoft.
Fiddling with my Vaio, he'd curse: Twelve convoluted steps for a Mac's every one! Blocks against basic user rights! Greed! Corruption! System failures!
He pretty much had a point.
Did you know? Microsoft, too cheap to buy the rights to The World's Best Font (Helvetica), crafted Arial. Oh, tasteless knockoff! Oh, pleather, Stevia, fake Fendi found cheap on Canal Street! Helvetica's letters are wholesome, impeccable, each stroke graceful, each curve solid. Microsoft came and squished and shaved, bullied an entire alphabet off-balance.
For this reason alone I am moved to buy a Mac. And not because the Ex still has my heart.
I swear.
Besides, does Apple still have his?
His iPhone busted as no iPhone's ever s'posed to. A ride in Gauloise-smoking Felix's auto. It slips behind the seat. Or beneath it. Or somewhere. Plastic metal glass in splinters.
Forgive me if I seek the metaphor. Forgive me if I think: My cousin put the iPod idea into his head to begin with, at my birthday party, December 2007. And I'm the one who laid down the dollars (oh, pleasant American prices): Mac store, Union Square, San Francisco. Snuck it through customs, Tegel Airport, right in time for New Year's.
Seven months later, my heart, shattered. Eight months later, the sleek and beveled beauty he would not own were it not for me...
Well, you get the picture.
Recent Comments