Laughter Through Tears

I spent most of September fighting back and shoulder pain which turned out to be related to switching from one handbag to a spare that I had buried in my closet.

On Sunday, I finally went to massage therapy for it (something that I'd been planning to do for years, but kept putting off). The masseuse did warn me that my back would be in pain for a day or so, but I don't think I fully grasped what she meant. 48 hours later, I'm mostly better, but those two days were filled with heat pads, NSAIDs, showers with very low water pressure, gentle stretches, and lying in bed watching old episodes of Bones on my laptop.

I won't do a full day's work today (out of an abundance of caution) but I am sitting at my computer and so far, I'm cautiously optimistic.

She did also make the point that I can/should make some ergonomic changes to my workstation. After Yom Kippur, I'll call the handyman and ask if he can rig me something for my desk, to let me perch my screen a little higher. And my mother recommended a footstool, back in the day.

I am provisionally open to ergonomic back-related advice for computer-working people.

It feels weirdly like a triumph to be sitting at my computer, at my desk, in my apartment, right now.

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Sukkot is here! Sometime during the week, I really need to make myself go out for an evening walk when it's nice and cool and look at the sukkot in the neighborhood. I haven't ever done it and I've been living here for about a decade, all in all. Not cool.

I'm also visiting my sister this week, on the way to a medical test. And there's the yearly geek con, which is in hybrid format this year, but I won't be able to make it to any in-person events. I'll have to think carefully about online events. I haven't had a single decent writing day this week.

Today was supposed to be a writing day, but then I stayed up late, and then I slept late, and then I hyper fixated on a bunch of things, and... Well, you know. I could use the rest, anyway. Not that I didn't take a whole bunch of time off only last month, for my birthday, but I also had a stressful day on Sunday, when I had to replace my phone.

Anyway, nomadic huts. Can you see the stars through the roof of yours?

Apparently, I bought my current phone in the summer of 2019, which means it's nearly two years old. Which is a formidable age for a phone, these days. Which I know, because on Saturday morning I woke up and discovered that my phone, which was plugged into its charger, wouldn't turn on.

I went into the local phone repair shop this morning, as soon as it opened. The fix only took 20 minutes and the price was reasonable -- compared to buying a brand-new phone. The charging port was fucked, is all. A quick and easy fix, and now my phone is charging as normal. I didn't even need to replace the battery.

Now I need to pencil in a date to replace my phone, so I can stay ahead of it and not find myself scrambling to the repair shop at inconvenient times. So much of what I do these days is tied up in my phone, it's dreadfully inconvenient to be without one, even if it's just for one (weekend) day. Even when the repair guy said, "it'll be done in 20 minutes, come back then," I was like, "how do I know how long that is?" I have no innate time-sense whatsoever.

Anyway, early next winter I'm getting a new phone, apparently.

My computer's being cleaned. I was hoping to have it back by last night, but apparently I will only get it back on Friday. Which is less than ideal. I do have the laptop (otherwise I would have waited to have it cleaned), but working on the laptop is less convenient.

For this and related reasons, I spent most of today reading.

I finished Valour and Vanity, MRK's "regency heist" novel. Now I'm taking a break, instead of plowing onwards to the last book in the series. And today I spent a couple of hours working on the Blue Rose outline.

Chrome went and did the thing where whenever you log onto Gmail through Chrome, it automatically logs you into the browser as well. Even though I have sync turned off (quite deliberately) this is still a problem for me. I figure it's a matter of time before they start harvesting, storing and selling even more data, and there's a reason I use DDG.

So, I am regretfully switching back to Firefox, and now I have to re-setup everything for my convenience.

But not right now, because my back is all crunched and I have Pilates in six minutes.

This which went wrong:

1. It rained today, I was slightly apprehensive about going out to pick up a heavy computer on my own in the rain. It turned out okay and didn't start storming until after I was safely ensconced at home.

2. I was carrying a computer so I needed a cab. The cab driver gave me the turn-around and I was too tired to argue with him, ended up paying a completely exorbitant price, plus he insisted on regarding the computer as "luggage". I didn't fight him on it.

3. My old screen had a cable that wasn't right for the opening in the back of the computer. Luckily I had a backup cable that does work.

4. I neglected to mention that I definitely want my OS in English and they installed my Windows 10 in Hebrew by default. These days this is much easier to fix, which I am in the process of doing.

5. Plugging in my router in the living room didn't work -- I switched the living room and bedroom earlier this year. I had to get an electrician to fix the socket in the new living room before I could connect the computer to the router. And I had to call the phone company first to figure out what was wrong.

6. Man, digging up the passwords to all my accounts is a pain and a half.

7. I might end up spending the rest of today installing and configuring shit.

8. Almost accidentally skipped lunch.

9. But at the end of this whole long process, I'm gonna have a gaming computer again.

I've hit the "don't really want to do anything :|" stage of depression. Most of this week I was too busy to have time for that, what with family business and some health stuff to take care of... But it's Friday and I'm finally home in my own apartment and I have the next (almost) two hours perfectly free and clear... and I don't want to do anything.

:|

In other news, next week I'm planning on finally replacing my desktop. I've been without one for just over a year.

A thing that I forgot is that there's a reason I don't usually leave work before four. And that reason is the lovely suburban parents in my neighborhood who show up in their cars by the drove, to pick up their kids from school. And between three and four (...or five) my street is filled with the cheerful sound of Israeli motorist etiquette. Which is nonexistent, by the way.

In other happy news, last week the hard drive on my desktop finally gave out. I didn't lose much, or at least, not much that didn't bear losing. I will have to recreate the timeline for my NaNoRenO project, once my headache has cleared. But mainly I lost a lot of junk. What with the new laptop, though, I can't really justify buying a new desktop. It's expensive, and I've had a lot of large expenses lately. I'm saving basically nothing working part-time, so there's that, also.

There's other news, and it's much more positive, but I'd need to relax my frame of mind a little, to do it justice.

Last Thursday I went out to replace my earphones, and met someone who went to primary school with me. It was beyond weird.

At least I have my tablet back. It's much nicer to read that way than on my clunky old laptop.