Of course, a day after Wal-Mart ate my novel I got it back. I'd gone to Customer Service, described the notebook, and left my phone number. The next day a rather cautious voice called to say they had a notebook--"something to do with, uh, Evidence of a Lost City?" "That's it," I said. Someone had turned it in. So my pages of notes and typed out pages are back.
A couple days later, my cat Mini, who had been with me nearly 15 years, vanished. That morning she had curled against me, as I set out her food, rather more insistently than usual. I spent a little extra time petting her. I never saw her again. How is that possible? She never left the back yard. Had she crawled off somewhere to die? I searched through all the area, in my underground room, in my piles of spare lumber. She wasnt there. There has been no sign of her since.
A couple days after that, at the cafe, my fast laptop computer suddenly died. I took it to the shop. The motherboard is kaput, they told me. I cant afford to replace it. I've fired up my old Pentium 4 desktop and am using that for my Evidence movie any my websites. But it is not nearly as swift, as capable, as my laptop was.
So what does all this mean? If this were a dream--if these events were nightmares--what would they signify? Perhaps Wal-Mart has indeed swallowed my novel, plus my cat and my computer, and what has been regurgitated are no more than dregs....
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6 years ago
That's not a dream, that's a nightmare! Though at least you found your notebook. Commiserations though on the cat, of course, and also the computer. I replaced a laptop this year, and my desktop needed major surgery. Hopefully that will pay off my karmic technology debts for a few years!
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to peek inside places like Walmart and McDonald's every now and then if you're an author simply because they are popular and attract a lot of people. You might not want to be one of those people, but you may wish to write about one. It's so easy, esp. online, to surround yourself with the familiar and the pleasing.
Thanks, Sharazade. So how often to you venture into Walmart? Walmart, McDonald's, the streets of a retirement community, Chamber of Commerce meetings...all quite terrifying. Well, at least my desktop, that old reliable Pentium 4, is running and I've loaded all the programs I need, and salvaged the Runtime from Poser, so I can begin work on the movie again...and this break from the computer gave me more time to sit in the cafe and write. Where do you write? I like being in cafes, part of and still apart from the world......Don
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, you caught me... WalMart, maybe... once every two years? And the last time I was in a McDonald's was in 1998. But I was in a Starbucks a few months ago! How's that? ;)
ReplyDeleteI love writing in cafes. There are a few near me that are comfortable, have free wifi, serve good coffee, and aren't too crowded (so I don't feel guilty about sitting for a while).
I find whenever I'm blocked and can't write, it helps to change physical location--home to a cafe, cafe to home, or even a different room in my home. Yay for laptops!