As I Lay Dying

Every few hours at unpredictable intervals my computer crashes.It's nerve-wracking.All of a sudden, one by one, within less than three seconds, the applications shut down, email Facebook, Google Maps - whatever I have open on the Internet... And then all the others, Word, Excel and so on.Goodbye work! Goodbye favorite poems I have saved as Word documents and was just rereading! Goodbye all Word documents I have open!One by one they say goodbye to me, some never returning, even after the heroic retrieval attempt the system then makes.It's like seeing the process of your own dying, only sped up. You were talking - just a second ago you were saying something interesting, or putting a commitment on your Google calendar and then - poof - all goes quiet.When real death happens, where will I be? It makes you wonder.I was reflecting on the beauty of the ocean which was right in front of me as I wrote.Also labeling more of the pictures taken at our family wedding.And editing newer pictures with Google's Picasa.Working on the ABC Fall Newsletter which we hope to get out in three weeks.And throwing some brightly colored threads of words down for a college recommendation I'll soon be writing.Because I'm also childish and distractable I was also looking at the lineup of new shows as presented by yesterday's New York Times.At the last system crash I was watching this short clip about the new show Animal Practice, debuting tonight. Hard to think that the last thing I might ever have done on this little laptop was watch the following. (On the other hand though, you gotta love a monkey. :-)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEmQwjeDqCI]