If you were doing a little website hopping, you may have noticed that I missed my weekly chat. It wasn’t on purpose. Things have been crazy around here for the last week – a family emergency, Mom in the hospital, two too long trips through a too long desert – but I still intended to post on Thursday.
If you must know, I was going to talk about several surprisingly affordable Van Goghs and an almost miraculous Barbie Dream House that I discovered online. I mean, the Barbie hangout is AMAZING. If you personally aren’t into Barbie or Vincent, you might not have found it my most scintillating post, but it wouldn’t have been so run-of-the-mill, either. (According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the phrase run-of-the-mill originated at the turn of the Twentieth Century and was “in reference to material yielded by a mill before sorting for quality. And, no, until today, I didn’t know there was an online etymology dictionary, either. Now that we both know, we’ll probably be using it all of the time.)
Having traveled through the too long desert to stay at a family member’s house, I wished I had more to do between doctor visits and trips to have blood drawn. (Not my doctor; not my blood. I was the support system.) I could have brought my laptop, but I'd decided to take a writing pad on this journey, instead. A pen-and-paper writing pad, like writers used in the old days.
I did this for two reasons: (1) I didn’t realize my three day visit was going to last a week; and (2) I’d recently read Margaret Atwood’s rules for writers, and thought it might be fun to go old school. About Day Two, I realized there's a reason why writers of my generation have abandoned the old school. I was already tired of writing with paper and pencil. By Day Three, I was done with paper and pen, too. I wanted my laptop. I wanted my Microsoft Word. But, still, my gracious family member DID have a rarely-used computer that they were willing to share, so I could still do the AnneGlynn.com thing.
I kicked up their somewhat ancient computer and wiggled my fingers in anticipation of the post to come. Then the computer went boom. Not literally, of course. I’ve yet to see a computer truly explode, although they occasionally do in bad movies. In real life, they just don’t boot up or they go black or they suddenly quit. The end result is usually the same: your heart falls, you curse a little, and you call the Geek Squad.
“Oh, did the computer quit again?” my beloved family member inquired, looking over my shoulder. It turns out, the machine really hadn’t functioned properly for some time. Since the family almost never used it, she had vaguely hoped it would follow the advice offered in Luke 4:23 and heal itself.
The end result ended up being, no blog yesterday and no discussion of bargain basement Van Goghs or super expensive Dream Houses today. The really good news is that all is well. The emergencies have been resolved, Mom is home again, and everyone is happy. Me, too.
I staggered into the house early this morning, road-worn and weary, so I’ll see you next week. Unless my computer goes boom.