My computer had a meltdown last night. Like, I was chatting with Kat and then it froze. That’s not a huge deal; happens sometimes, so I went to the bathroom to give it a moment to right itself. And when I came back it had restarted itself. And the restart came up with a black screen and a mouse that I could move around… but didn’t do anything else. So I shut down and restarted. And then it went nuts. Like messages scrolled across my screen in some sort of scandisk hell in which things were corrupted and moved around and orphaned and… I have no idea. After my husband and I tried to figure out what was going on – for about an hour – we decided to go to sleep. I woke up this morning with Scott’s 5AM alarm (I usually sleep ’til 8:00, particularly after I’d stayed up until midnight trying to get my computer to work), computer was still a basketcase, found my installation disks (but not the drivers; still have no idea why I would’ve put the driver installation disk in a different place than EVERY OTHER INSTALLATION disk my computer came with, but whatevs), and finally, after it was clear that I could do no good, went back to sleep. Woke up at my normal 8:00 with Scott bringing coffee (he’s amazing that way) and my operating system being reinstalled, because nothing else was working.

So.. luckily I had run a back up, either Sunday or Monday night, not sure which yet (currently installing drivers and eventually I’ll get to the backup installation and figure out if I’ve been backing up what I think I’ve been backing up). But regardless of when that was, I did six hours of edits yesterday – six hours – that I was so happy with I’d even gloated to Scott about them. Six. Hours. Even if I did run back up every night, which admitedly, I don’t, that wouldn’t have been saved because my computer flipped a gasket while I was still using it.

This made me think about  the way we as a society think about computers. I know it’s not this way for everybody, but for me, my computer is one of the most important things I own. My car broke down on Saturday (it’s still in the shop – it’s been a red-letter week for repairs), and that didn’t distress me half as much. I can take the bus. I can borrow somebody else’s car. But borrowing somebody else’s computer does not get me my six hours of work back. And while I KNOW it’s not true, and I can put the work in to get back what I did, there’s always this feeling like… I really liked what I had created. Can I make something I’ll like as much? The words will never be the same as what I had, but can I make something I’ll be equally proud of?

[side note: drivers installed; installing 77 security updates; and in case you're wondering, I'm blogging from my husband's computer]

It seems to me that computers get handled a lot like an expensive can opener – a utility that  when it breaks, it’s merely an inconvenience until you replace it. And maybe that was it twenty years ago, but now computers are like a bizarre jewelry box that when it breaks makes your grandmother’s pearls disappear.

This is why I’m seriously into Google (who, I’m also convinced, has a world domination plot; there is no other reason to do the amount of stuff they do for you for free) and the way Amazon handles Kindle files. These companies treat data differently than, say iTunes (which I use and love, but it is run by a computer company, not a services or software company) which counts on a faulty piece of hardware to save your pearls. (And yes, backup, backup, backup… but I’m running out of room to back everything up on and I’ve got a 40 GB portable hard drive.)

Unlike iTunes, Amazon keeps a record of your purchases, and you can re-download them to your Kindle whenever you want. That way if I, say, drop my Kindle in the fountain I’m reading by, yes I have to replace a $300 item (which would suck… and teach me not to read by fountains), but not the $300 item and $900 or more worth of books.  If my computer has a meltdown while I’m chatting with my friend after I’ve downloaded a bunch of music from iTunes but before I’ve backed it up… I lose both my computer and the music. (Luckily, I THINK all my music was backed up).

And with GoogleDocs, as long as I can get to an internet connection, I can work on my wips, and I feel secure knowing that my documents are safe. There’s a built in redundancy that I am not personally responsible for. Google – who I have not given any money to – takes better care of my jewelry than Dell, who I did give money to.  I’m currently debating whether or not to just move all my writing onto googleDocs… I just don’t always write somewhere with an internet connection, and therein lies the issue.

But these companies understand that in the information age, an idea and the words or pictures that state it are vastly more important – and can be worth a lot more money – than the item used to compose it. Paper is a dead tree. Keyboards are plastic… but the things you create with them, they have worth.

[Security Updates 49% downloaded]

Send good hopes my way that as I re-edit my first 50 pages, a muse sits on my shoulder and guides my hands. I don’t want to be a slave to memory, trying to recreate what I did (even though it was damn awesome) because attempting to resurrect a ghost never creates a vital being. So I will need her to hang out for another six hours or so. After the security updates finish. And after I reinstall Chrome and iTunes and Open Office. And after I get by backup running and see what I have and what I don’t.

Blessings for the New World Order:

(God may save my soul, but I’m pretty sure my files are up to me, Mr. Brin and Mr. Page)