I recently brought a new laptop

 

I recently brought a new laptop.  I knew that I needed a new laptop when I tried to buy some adobe software last autumn, and realised that my processor speed was a quarter of the minimum specifications.  

Computers age a bit like we do, you never really notice that it’s happened until you’re out with a younger person for drinks after work, and you realise they plan to stay out, meet up with others and carry on, and you’ve been thinking about getting home and having a nice omelette in front of the TV.  (True story, this week, friday night, I was home by half eight).

In the shop, the man suggested that my computer couldn’t be “about a couple of years old”, and as I counted the years onto my second hand, I slunked out of the shop muttering about built in obsolescence.

For my snazzy new model, I chose to indulge myself with an optional extra that was less useful than a upgrade of cache memory or hard drive, but that would match a similarly indulgent sofa that my sister and I invested in when we moved into the flat.

Eagerly awaiting my new laptop with a spring green microsatin finish, one mac user commented scornfully that only when you’re buying a PC, do you have to pay extra for style.

Leaving aside that some might feel a spring green microsatin finish falls a little short of style, and moving on to once again abuse my not so lofty position on this blog, to get in the last word on an argument, I figure it’s just a like a snooty mac user to think that with the hefty mark up pound for pound on a PC, the mac is about anything else.

I have finally run out of all possible wall space for my drawings and the rest are getting clipped together in rather satisfying piles around the floor. 

And still the objects are dividing in front of my eyes.  I realise that I’ve reached that annoying bit of tidying when there are a few disparate items left and you can’t figure out where to put them because they just don’t belong anywhere.

But if you’re me, you also realise that this is the best bit.  I’ve still got about a cupboards’ worth to go and I’m having the time of my life.

In my studio after one of these particularly long days, I wrote,

“I literally hurt, my hand has been tied up in a fist all day and particularly, in my little and second to last finger, there is distinct throbbing”

I have had reason in the past to remark about how fond I am of my small and densely spaced handwriting and this was written in the same vein, so the thought occurred to me when I re-read this, that I might have chosen a different way to articulate my feelings: speaking out loud for example, or at the least, using a fat crayon on a large sheet of paper.

I also realise that I even need to get the last word in, when it’s me.