THE
NEW BLUE
Ah
yes, that Cranky Laptop. The ancient one with
its weight and size. The one that needed the annoying cable &
socket strip to keep it plugged into
power and therefore
alive. As someone, in
response to my mutterings, told me:
“That’s not a
laptop, mother, it’s a desk top.
Move on.”
So
I did - and now I have a fine shiny
laptop.My New Blue will be wonderful one day. It is light, slim and beautiful
- unlike its human - and has oodles of power. However, at first it
felt almost as crotchety as the cranky old machine. A shouty,
unfamiliar system made me feel slow and stupid and the screen was plastered with links to unwanted apps and games. It was as if Sleeping Beauty lay there daubed with fluorescent facepacks, overnight beauty aids and correctiveS patches.
The New Blue machine and I felt like strangers and all the embedded “helpfulness” made it hard to do what I most wanted to do which was a) to start some writing and b) be able to
find it again. I was in
despair about wrangling any new writing into shape ever again.
Is
it always like this with a brand new computer? Or was it that I had no helpful
young person close at hand to sigh and smile in an amused way and say, quite casually, “Oh, you
just need to do that.”
You see, a while back, I
had a daydream. I'd imagined sauntering
into town, settling myself in a coffee-shop and
typing
with careless ease plus - cue
hollow laugh - a gentle spark of
inspiration. And it would all take place once I had my mythical non-cranky laptop.
Alas no. Although I possessed the elegant New Blue, I was like an aged
toddler attempting to stack different-sized
plastic tumblers on slippery tiles.
However, being positive, I can learn and ask and practice
patience - and be kind to helpful tech-bodies and all will be
good.
Although how could I post my cranky words out in the blogosphere when my. New Blue wi-fi does not like the house walls – or is
it the other way around? I was trapped in a zone of silence. Or faced with a search for a memory stick in a small rattly box that's Somewhere . . .
Or, as of today, through peace and quiet and an armchair in another room, progress has been made. The New Blue and I are here togther. We exist.
Onward.
