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Thursday, August 25, 2005
EXILE: UP TO DATE
I experienced a sample of what it must be like to find oneself to be totally exiled for a night and the better part of the elongated next day. Our computer ”died” yesterday or gave every indication of having done so.
It just sat there in its comfortable niche and stared back at me without the least glimmer of recognition or any sign of ever having had any association whatsoever with me or any glimmer of recognition or concern. The mood of the moment equated quickly and with somber certainties assuring me that a demise of some sort had taken place in the area. I suddenly realized that I did no longer sensed the flicker of tiny lights over there, up above or down there below in superficial ad-on regions. A dramatic zone of absolute quietness closed in all about my agitated body.
I should have known it was coming. The printer had be “acting up” for several days, kicking out a blank sheet now and then. It's off to on side in he particular setup we enjoy here it runs pretty much own as long as it feed good paper. It stops if slighted and it makes a tire-skid noise when it tries to spit out an indigestible piece of parchment. Printers are quirky,I've been told, and it is common sludge-talk that if you are having printer trouble you can expect to have more of it elsewhere. The family car, maybe; the dishwasher - but not the family computer.
I insist something happened. I walked away from last night feeling small. I returned to the site of the event after breakfast having prepared myself with words my computer-guide-son Andy Jr. always tells me when computer problems arise. “Remember, Dad, It's only a machine!” With that in mind I started checking out what it was supposed to be doing and, suddenly it was.
This afternoon I have also decided that computers and printers are events-oriented, as well. They seem to emulate thunderstorms which coincide so well with planned picnics or follow so closely on car washings/waxings. Our day or so of communications exile happened a day or two before a group from our extended leave for a pare-school steeping in sunshine, sea water and sand a Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. That means e-mail and pictures sharing the land of the Wright Brothers and of other such notable persons such as Blackboard the pirate who once frequented those waters.
A.L.M. August 25, 2005 [c435wds]
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