January Four

Best Friends Forever Until I Break You 

    One side is a tranquil paradise. The other side is a dangerous jungle. I'm in the middle, standing over a chasm on a bridge spun out of dreams and bluster, held together with elbow grease. One side unfetters. Do I run and jump to reach
paradise -risking probable death- or swing with the falling bridge and climb up the dangling pieces into the unpredictable jungle? 
    Risk bliss or trust what is known? You guessed it. Gregorific's laptop broke. 
    The pain is  unbearable. I Must. Fight. To. Keep. Breathing. 

    I went through the stages of grief. I denied it was broken for weeks, despite the visible crack. And the chunk of metal missing near the touch pad. Then I got angry. No, it would not quit on me. We'd been through too much! How could it leave me?

---

  I taped the cord in place because it kept slipping out or disconnecting from power. I bargained. Give me until Christmas at least. Let Santa work his magic and it will all be well. It did not last until Christmas. One day I pirouetted in to my work station-also known as my couch- and pressed the button. Pressed the. Pressed. Pre

    Nothing happened. No power. The outlet for the cord to charge was broken. 
    No juice, people. It will not even acknowledge me with a flashing light, or a beep, or a click. It's gone!
   *I did not take it well.* 
    My neighbor called to ask about the wailing. The President texted me his condolences. Oprah emailed me to live my best life even without my best laptop. BUT I COULDN'T OPEN THE EMAIL BECAUSE MY LAPTOP IS BROKEN. Oh, Oprah. Only you. Later she hired a skywriter to do the job right. 
    So now I have to buy a new computer. It just seems so sudden. Too soon. Before its time.

    Don't worry, I have all my junk backed up on my hard drive. And on Carbonite which I can't recommend highly enough. It's more an emotional than literary loss. And a financial  loss. And a time loss. And a major loss in my ability to keep up with late breaking updates from my favorite gossip sites. (She went shopping in that? He was seen with her? Oh no you didn't! Snap, he did!)

    So now I must go into a room of strangers and pick a new best friend. It's so weird to put your fingers on a new keyboard. Or weirder to try out several in an aisle of Geekdom. I analyze the stats of each and try to decide what I value most. Memory? Speed? Size? Price? It's all so tawdry. I can't put into words what I need. 
   My best bet is to take in my old laptop, with the hole in its body and the tape trailing off the side.
   This is what it takes to be my laptop!
   Any takers?
   And I'll just see who steps up. Who will take the challenge?

    Once I have my new best friend, we will mend my bridge to the side of life that I love. The side where I get to make the rules and cross the great divide between reality and creativity.
    Here's hopin' people. Gregorific's gonna buy a new laptop.

~gregorific