Six long months on a dust covered trail

God I hate Microsoft.

When the storm blew in the dining room windows and spattered rain on our laptops (not doing the teak dining room table any favors either), I was irritated. When the guy at the Little Shop of Hardware took $150 from me just to crack my Linux laptop and put it back together, I was resigned. When I heard that the motherboard was completely fried and there was nothing to do for my poor lovely machine, I grieved.

But when Bob and I started both using the shitty Dell desktop machine that I usually only use for paying bills, I became livid.

Bob's laptop is in the shop too, for the same reason. But it's a work laptop, and he has to use shit like Outlook, and he has to sync his Blackberry using Microsoft ActiveSync, and now every time I sit down to use the computer it takes about 10 minutes to wake the computer up, log on, wait for the desktop to build itself, log on again, kill several messages about failed scripts and available software updates, and finally give up and restart the fucking thing.

I miss my Linux laptop. And we can't afford to replace it.

See, this weekend I was totally going to hole up somewhere comfortable, like bed, and write book reviews until my elbows gave out. Bob took the kids camping, with several other families, but I had to work, so I stayed home.

Boy am I regretting that, actually. The fact is, I punked out. I never went camping as a kid, and I never really learned how to go camping as an adult. When I said that to my friend Christine, she literally laughed at me. "As if there's anything to learn!" But I'm the kind of person who always wants to do things RIGHT. You know, I want to put the tent up the right way the first time. That's why I read instructions. Hell, I used to WRITE instructions for a living - I'm very invested in doing things right.

So I was kind of intimidated, and while it is true that I was way in the hole in terms of asking off work on weekends, I probably could have sweet-talked the schedulers into letting me have the day. But I didn't.

So I borrowed My Side of the Mountain on CD from the library, packed their backpacks, and sent them off to get filthy, bug-bit, overtired, and underfed - without me.

And now I have the weekend to myself. Which... I love to be alone? and it frustrates me when I'm trying to write and somebody keeps tugging on my mouse arm? But I'm all sad and weepy without my boys here. Don't get me wrong - I'm living the fabulous disgusting single life this weekend. On the way home from work yesterday, I bought: a half gallon of carrot juice, which I am drinking directly from the jug; a jar of baked beans, which I heated up and ate directly from the jar (WITH mayo); and a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, which I ate directly from the bag while semi-reclined on the guest room bed watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and drinking a six-pack of Dogfish Head Raison d'Etre. "Dance, you limber little Asians! Oops, there goes a Cheeto down my bra."

But nobody woke me up this morning, and I didn't have anyone to check on last night as I stumbled drunkenly to bed. I miss them.