Almost a Year

My stepfather gave me the laptop on which I'm tapping away almost a year ago now. He didn't know then (and I never told him nor my mother until after the layoff) how incredibly fortuitously timed a gift it was, as I embarked on the search for a new job, wiser by far than my previous employers as to my fitness for their expectations, and more prescient than myself even in doing something about it. I try not to have bad feelings toward my exes - but that employer ranks low on my list in terms of my sustained respect. Ah well.

Just as important to me, if not perhaps as "practical" by the standards he might hold, or even my mom probably does, is the ability this little machine has given me to (a) finish, and (b) query my novel(s).


The keyboard shows inevitable signs - every keyboard I have used in the past twelve years or so has; since hardware manufacturers began depending on decals for their letter labels, rather than those old, fine, putty-colored keyboards which had embedded contrasting plastic extruded, formed right in, and indelibly present to deliniate the poor N which seems to suffer most from my typing-with-my-nails style - of my typing-with-fingernails method of getting things electronically done.

Otherwise, though, it's as clean and pristine as the day I was gobsmacked to open the laptop box, December 25, 2009. The case is a gorgeous mahogany color, almost - but, elegantly, not *quite* - black. It does bear one single scratch, which I affectionately forgive, because I almost certainly sustained it on my trip to see my family on the West Coast. But it is still new. It is still neato. It is still a pretty whizbang little box to report in to most every day, to waste time on, and to work on.

I'm still a bit eye-blinking about the gift.

Makes Christmas tricky - but mom did give me a great idea. So that is a good thing. I can show him some gratitude.