I’m reasonably
proud of myself, because I am an almost 60 year old woman who makes her living
through this modern technology of computers and the Internet. Some women my age,
whom I know personally, can’t tell a tweet from blog. They’re afraid to join
Face Book because they don’t want anyone to know their business—or where they
are or who they are.
They don’t care
about keeping up or being in the loop, and that’s fine. That’s their choice, and
they’re all happy—well, as happy as they can be, considering the fact that they
are out of the loop.
However, I have
to be careful not to become too proud of myself, because the moment I
do...I get set down on my ass again. Case in point happened last Friday. I’d
gotten up, begun my morning routine, and was minding my own business working
away on my work in progress, when all of a sudden my monitor went
black.
Now I should
digress to tell you that this has happened as a burp three or four times in the
last six months—the monitor has gone out and then come right back on again.
These few glitches have been immediately followed by an error message that tells
me the device driver quit, but recovered successfully.
So when this
happened last Friday, I waited, confident that this was just another glitch. And
I waited. Finally, I checked the connections—sort of—and even got down on the
floor to ensure the darned thing was plugged in, under my desk, because the
monitor light wasn’t even blinking. It was. Getting down on the floor is not
something I do lightly, or easily. Getting up again is even more
difficult.
There I was,
with work to do, but no monitor, so I did what any reasonably-minded almost 60
year old professional author would do. I called my thirty-six year old daughter.
Unfortunately, it was going to be an hour or more before she could come over and
see what was wrong.
I turned off my
computer, and went over to my husband’s computer. It didn’t take me long to
install Dropbox on his machine. For those of you who don’t know, Dropbox is an
online storage device. I use this back-up and have all my Lusty, Texas writing
files in it (thank you for twisting my arm, Heather Rainier), and before my
daughter could even arrive, I was working again. Boy, was I glad I could be
working again!
My daughter
arrived, and switched the monitors between our two computers. This would tell us
if it was the monitor that was having the problem, or the tower. And...both
monitors came on. Both of them. Came on. Like nothing had ever
happened.
Me: Great! Ok,
switch them back, please.
Daughter: I
can’t right now, Mom. I’ll come back sometime tonight and do it.
Me: But...it’s
not my monitor on my computer. It’s your dad’s.
Daughter: Oh,
well. At least you have a monitor. Deal with it.
Actually my
beloved had a very nice monitor, but it wasn’t my brighter, bigger
professional author monitor.
While I had
been working on my husband’s computer, I remembered all the things that I had
not yet saved into Dropbox, files that I had put off uploading into it. There
was my excel spreadsheet that I use to keep track of the words I’ve written, and
all my picture files—the ones I use for my street team, and the ones I have of
my heroes and heroines. So I proceeded to save everything else in that handy
little online storage system. And then I went back to work, on my computer with
my husband’s monitor. I multi-tasked as I do most days, bouncing between writing
and housework. When it was time to nap, I napped. When it was time to make
dinner, I did that.
Then my beloved
came home—I’d been hopeful daughter would come in right then and restore my
monitor, but no, she had to go right back to work. Imagine that! We ate,
and then I went back to work, and my husband came in to use his computer. After
a while, we actually spoke to each other.
Me: No offense,
dear, but I hate your monitor.
Husband: So do
I, now that I’m using yours. You can’t have it back, by the way.
Me: What do you
mean, I can’t have it back? It’s my monitor!
Husband: I
thought writers could understand simple sentences. I’m keeping this
monitor.
Me: But I hate
your monitor.
Husband: Oh
well, at least it’s a monitor. Deal with it.
So I did what
any reasonable almost sixty year old professional author would do. I went to the
electronics store the very next day and bought myself a brand new, 27 inch
professional author’s monitor. Daughter was very prompt in arriving to install
it.
If they’ve
learned anything, those two, it’s that I do, in the final analysis, have my
bottom line.
Love,
Morgan
LOL. I love this. I have passed the magic 60 mark (I was 63 this morning--think I still am). My kids are remarkably good at not rolling their eyes when I ask them things, but the grandkids are great! They know and can fix everything!
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