Computers and Men

Yesterday I was so bitchy with my husband that I actually looked at the calendar to see if there was a chemical reason for my hyper-sensitivity on whatever it was that I was sure I was right about.

We Had Words over dinner, and then he finished his work and went off to bed. He's got wall-to-wall deadlines right now, and I'm still waxing dramatic about my interior landscape. I'm not altogether clear on why this man lives with me; it could be that I get 99.9% of his jokes.

Late last night, just as it looked like I might be able to get to sleep, I spilled tonic water on my laptop. At first it appeared that I might have sopped it up in time, and I went about my business—until the keys stopped working. Then I heard a hissing sound.

So today, after church and a quick squabble with my long-suffering spouse, I had to tell him that I suspected I'd hopelessly screwed up my hard drive.

"Well," he replied, "we've been talking about the fact that we need new computers anyway. I guess we'll just get yours sooner. But check and see if we can get a discount for buying two at once."

My marriage is full of these moments, wherein I'm positive I'm right about some small thing and have trouble letting it go. Then my husband commits some extreme act of generosity or love, and I feel like a complete asshole. And of course that isn't the way to look at things either: It's a fatal mistake not to recognize that I bring real assets to this partnership.* But finding the middle ground between extreme egotism on the one hand and a complete lack of assertiveness on the other is an awful lot harder than it looks. It's harder than it should be. (Things should be easy, right? I was born in 1962: does that explain anything?)

I'm a very lucky woman, and it's difficult to remember that fact, particularly through the vaguely depressed fog that goes along with long-term, severe underemployment.

All I can say is, I'm glad I made hamburgers last night (the husband's a fan of All Things Beef). I'm glad I brought breakfast on a tray down to the Attila-Hub's office yesterday (where I'm now typing away on his old desktop machine, as he writes on his laptop). I'm glad I've figured out how to meet my deadlines this week without consistent computer access, or the ability to refer to my files. Glad we have a backup computer, along with all the other material blessings that turn invisible when I start wringing my hands over perceived shortfalls.

The economy is moving up and moving along. So am I. And my little friends at Apple think they can save the data from my old hard drive, though the logic board is toast and the entire machine "not worth fixing." I'll know in a week, and by then I'll have the new computer.

P.S. So what say you guys: should I go for the 15-inch-display laptop, or try to save a few bucks and make it a 12-inch-display model? The smaller one might be more portable.

I'm trying to remember that this will end up being a Good Thing: the old PowerMac was five years old, after all. We needed to do this within 6-12 months, in any event.

* M. Mahatma: Insert joke here? I brought a cooler into this relationship, after all.