I’m not out at the parades tonight. No, instead I’m home drinking iced coffee, totally sober, trying to fix my new lemon of a computer. Worst thing that will happen is that I have to ship it back and they send me a new one, so it’s not a huge disaster, but still. I want to fix it. I don’t even know where to start talking about how it’s farked on up.
Basically Windows won’t load. Yes it is Vista. So I had the seller send me the recovery disks when Windows kept erroring out. I got them today. So tonight as soon as I got home I ran disk 1 and it failed. Blue screened. The bad blue screen, not the happy Windows startup blue screen. That means hardware failure, I thought. Well. Now I’ve gotten to the point where it runs the recovery disk and begins recovering up til about 27%, then I get ERROR 1005: IF THIS ERROR PERSISTS, CONTACT HP SUPPORT. I powered up my decrepit laptop to research the error, and one of the fixes was to wipe off the recovery disk itself, as in the DVD that I got today, so I did that. 1005 again. I went into setup and changed a few things that were off, namely the date and time (not good) and set the mouse detection to ENABLE rather than AUTODETECT because it wasn’t autodetecting SHIT. Which made it hard to CLICK on things like NEXT and OK. 
This has been going on for upward of four hours now.
Another fix is to run the hard drive disk test (?) from startup but I can’t figure out where that option is. Another fix is to uninstall a bunch of the RAM because it seems Vista doesn’t like running recovery with a bunch of RAM. But I’m not touching that. I think if I went in and started ripping out hardware, pretty sure my warranty would be voided.
So now I’m running a hard drive test from the recovery disk. And it’s taking for-freaking-ever because my hard drive is 750 gigs. That’s just the internal. I have two externals totaling about a terabyte and a half. Which are doing me absolutely no good right now other than holding down some papers.
This is how I am spending my Friday night. This is how I know I’m a nerd.
I gotta admit, though, I love doing stuff like this. Troubleshooting problems til 1) I fix it 2) I run through every single option and begrudgingly have to call someone or 3) I fall asleep. I’m in full-on geek mode tonight and jacked up on a WHOOOLE LOT of CAFFEINE. No shame!!!!1! ALL CAPS! IS! SERIOUS! BUSINESS!
anyway…
heh I emailed the tech support guy I’ve been dealing with and told him everything that was going on in excruciating detail. I stopped just short of adding screen shots to my message. (Know how I know you’re a tech writer?) I ended the email with “Hey I’m gonna be up really late because I’ve been drinking coffee for three hours. PLEASE CALL ME. Here is my number. Email is mostly useless. CALL ME. I will be up LATE. HELP.” Hopefully he’s not on call again tonight. He was on call last weekend and called me on Saturday but I missed him. But that was before when I thought the recovery disks would solve everything. Anyway it’s not like I’m going to be able to fall asleep any time soon. This makes iced coffee #4.
Drinking & getting fucked up is like going into manual retardation mode. When you have messed up chromosomes or an addict for a mom, that’s automatic retardation. It takes manual work to make yourself retarded on purpose. I don’t know what that has to do with my computer problems, was just something I was thinking about on the way back from getting more coffee earlier.
I have two new paintings in the works now, and I’ve clocked about 6 hours on the second one so far and it’s only about half done. Lots of little squares and much precision needed. That’s all I’m going to say about it til I post a photo. OH. And And and and… I’m about to get a new (to me) digital camera from a friend in Chicago (thank you!) and a photo printer, so… I foresee another art show perhaps this Fall. Doin some pretty neat stuff, can’t wait to show it.
haven’t been posting much lately because I am currently working on a bunch of different projects that require both hands. Like, for instance, two new works of art and editing a friend’s novel and writing my own stuff, recording shows, building things like a little stage for finger puppets, making stencils, taking photos, painting my house (inside), etc. Been busy offline. Things are great though, doing well. Better than well.
I’ve been getting random bursts of euphoria lately and I dunno whether it’s the pills or me or both (and frankly I don’t care), but it’s been great riding those glee-waves here and there. Way better than feeling like I’m drowning. When I get the happy-surges, some of my best writing happens. I’ve heard a lot of people say they can only write when they’re miserable, but I’m the opposite.
Well, no. I can write when I’m miserable, too, but I don’t like what I produce as much as when I’m content and calm and gently filled with gratitude. Glad to be alive. The former stuff, the stuff that spurts from misery, comes out like Bukowski. The latter comes out in language like Blake’s. I like both poets in their own right, but Blake deals with the mystical and that’s my homeland.
(when I say my stuff comes out “like Bukowski” or “like Blake,” I don’t mean as a COLLEAGUE of them, but in the same vein. I’m not saying I am as good as either because of course I’m not. Just – different subject matter, different perspectives, and I can shift – sacred to the profane and back – depending on the day.)
So.
The not-drinking helps. I don’t drink during the week at all any more and I feel worlds better for it. And I have a lot of extra money now, too, which is a cool bonus and will come in handy when I cave and buy yet another bookcase. Because mine are officially all full.
See, Amazon gave me a credit card. Worlds collided, crates of books were purchased, probly set new records with them re: number of books sold in shortest amount of time to someone who doesn’t own a bookstore. But the card’s already paid off and now I’m thinking: bookcase. The overflow is cresting on each shelf.
Oh, last thing: A friend turned me on to a great poet: Dean Young. I think I posted a poem of his earlier last month. I recommend him if you like Tony Hoagland and Mark Doty and absurdists and joy and laughing.
1. Number of non-working computers at my house: 1
2. Number of barely-working computers at my house: 1
3. Number of recovery disks being overnighted to my house by the people I bought my new computer from that would be so totally awesome if it just worked: 3
4. Number of people up at work without MS Outlook today: about 5,000
5. Number of computers down when I went to Walgreens earlier and had to wait for their repair guy to switch out printers: 2
6. Number of times I’ve thought about moving to a desert island and staying far, far away from computers for the rest of my life today since apparently I am a walking technology curse: 15
7. Number of Trazadone in my prescription: 60
8. Number I’ve taken since October: 3
9. Remaining refills: 1
10. Remaining pills not even counting the refill: 57. I really don’t need this Rx.
11. Number of times I was offered Class A illegal drugs last Saturday night before this past one: 2
12. Number of times I said yes to it: 0
13. Number of times I drank alcohol last week: 1
14. Number of times I got Diazed by total strangers last week: 2
15. Number of new paintings I started last night: 1. I’d post a photo but OUTLOOK IS STILL FARKING BROKEN.
16. Number of meetings I’ve missed today because Outlook is still farking broken: at least 1. Maybe more. I can’t tell.
17. Number of times I’ve cursed both NMCI and Microsoft: eleventy billion
18. Number of things on my To Do list today: 17
19. Number I’ve done as of 1PM: 13
20. Number of pedicures I gave myself last night while rewatching Memento: 1. Because 2 would be unnecessary.
The other night, Saturday night, I was recording my friend’s show at the Saturn bar and afterward I ran into a friend from grad school who was there with his neighbor. So we hung out for a while drinking and catching up. In walks a very drunk dude, about 40 yrs old, sits down next to us and starts talking to us. About five minutes into the conversation, he looks at me and says, “You look like that actress. You know, the one in all them movies.” I respond, “Cameron Diaz?” because I get that sometimes. I get her, Drew Barrymore esp in Firestarter (when I was a kid I looked just like her in that movie), and my personal favorite: Ellen Barkin after she’s been hit in the face with a shovel.
So the guy goes bananas. He starts saying things like, “You TRYIN to look like her! You tryin to look like Cameron Diaz!” I said something like yeah, every morning when I wake up, I think to myself, how can I MORE look like Cameron Diaz? And then I went to the restroom.
When I got back, all hell was breaking loose. The bartender was in the middle of 86ing the guy and he was off his stool, walking around throwing his arms in the air and yelling at my friends the same thing: SHE TRYIN TO LOOK LIKE CAMERON DIAZ! MAN WHY YOU TRYING TO LOOK LIKE HER? Meanwhile I’m laughing my ass off and the bartender’s yelling at the guy to GTFO. I asked her why she was booting him, and she said he called me a bitch a couple times while I was in the bathroom.
So I said, Oh, and drank my beer. Dude left. I learned later that he’s a regular and he gets kicked out pretty much every Saturday night. So, that.
THEN.
Yesterday I was at the grocery store getting a salad for lunch. As I’m walking back to my car, the get-the-buggies guy says to me, What a beautiful day! And I say, Yep it sure is. I get about ten feet from him when he yells back at me, HEY HAS ANYONE EVER TOLD YOU THAT YOU LOOK LIKE CAMERON DIAZ? I responded, YES! YES THEY HAVE! Goddammit what IS it with you people!? and got in my car and left.
Now I’m getting some crap about it on Facebook. My status was “I got Diazed again at the grocery store.” Jarret told me not to worry, that he’s rubbed cum in his hair before, too.
Which gave me a great costume idea for Mardi Gras:
It’s easy, and everyone will know who I am. I have some Aquanet. Costume problem solved. Thanks, everybody.
Bad writing = generalizations
Good writing = specifics
that’s all for now.
It might have been midnight when last we talked
and now I’ve got this poem that keeps flying
apart which accounts under these xenophobic stars
for all force: gravity, magnetism wind, the ling-
ering of a kiss, a judo throw although
there’s yet to be a single formula for it.
Save us from single formulas. One room
smells like ash, another smells like fruitcake.
One cardinal sits on a branch, another under.
You’ve got to be a bird to understand any of this,
feathery and hollow-boned. You’ve got to be
a claims adjuster staring at a storm. You’ve
got to be entered by a shower of gold coins.
On the back of a Brazilian book of poems,
the translator looks haggard as if she’s chased
a mule cart into another century, the twentieth,
and suddenly she’s feeble in Pittsburgh in her
bunny furs. Imagine, suddenly Pittsburgh,
the handful of dust thrown up for the sun’s
haughty inspection, laughing its molecular
laugh, hungry again, dazzling again it its
stained satin pajamas like the memory of lost
love. I think we were walking though some woods
towards more to drink, up ahead the future
gesticulating wildly like a beggar who’d
scare us out of money, the future threatening
to isolate us like glum geniuses prowling
record stores, not getting a lot done,
mistaken for clerks with gum on our shoes. I’m
trying not to panic. I’m trying to find the center,
drive a nail through it like a mercy killing. I’m
letting myself be thrown around while Come at me
says the day to the night. Come at me says
the cloud to the moon dragging its terrible noose.
Come at me says L so she can show me what she’s learned
in martial arts and now some part of me can’t or
won’t get up, the ground husky with thaw, fall’s
idiot nomenclature garbled in the bramble. I’m
letting my back get soaked. I’m turning into wine.
I’m a broken kore, lips barely parted saying
what? I know suffering does not make us beautiful,
it makes us disappear like wearing black shirts
at midnight, like lying on the spinning earth
crying, Momma, Momma.
- Dean Young
