we pause now for system identification

brief history of the past week or so.

july 12. trying to print form for school. failure to print. computer crashes. manual shutdown. hard drive crashing. computer refuses to reboot. computer rushed to help desk at school. two hours spent attempting to recover lost data. tearful breakdown over phone with husband in shanghai in front of nice undergraduate help-desk people. panic attack. photos from previous year of research possibly lost. self-loathing for being computer illiterate. new thinkpad x60s ordered with student discount.

july 13. stumbling toward houston. panic.

july 14. bastille day. watching 'harry potter and the order of the phoenix'. not bad.

july 15. hot humid thunderstorms. houston galleria wanderings.

july 16. hot humid bored. driving around. photos.

july 17. houston metropolitan center at the public library.

july 18. more library research. mom's 60th birthday.

july 19. library. attempt to attend houston midtown redevelopment authority urban planning meeting. tangle of freeway interchanges make me hopelessly lost. arrival 15 minutes late only to be told there is no such meeting scheduled.

july 20. new laptop arrives. attempts to get online. abject failure. email to rightful tenant for help. watching 'ratatouille'. pixar's rendering capablities strike me dumb.

july 21. midnight. borders bookstore. waiting 1.5 hours for copy of 'harry potter and the deathly hallows'. reading until 7am. falling asleep for 3.5 hours. research at the library and furtive use of free internet. realization that new laptop lacks word processing program. downloading open office.

books read so far:

middlesex, jeffrey eugenides
little women, louisa may alcott
the ivory tower, unfinished novel by henry james
redwall, brian jacques
the wind up bird chronicle, haruki murakami
harry potter and the deathly hallows, j.k. rowling
atonement, ian mc ewan

reading:
the blind assassin, margaret atwood