Robert A. Sloan

Checked the tracking number and my new Asus refurb laptop is in Texas. It's scheduled to be here tomorrow and right on time. It's not even that big a package, it's under 7 pounds. Even with packaging. I am so happy it's that lightweight. The case is aluminum, something that was a pleasant surprise I discovered reading more details about it after Nonny put in the order.

Discovered this Mac does not have the hardware to run Diablo 2, so there are no games on the Mac. I didn't download Gimp to it because I knew the Asus was coming and that I'd probably have to try to figure out which flavor of antique Gimp was the right generation for a computer from 2004. This machine is almost as old as my cat and just as healthy, which is awesome. It has MS Office for Mac 2004, which has Word, which means that for the first time since I left Arkansas, I have MS Word again.

What this means is that my Mac is not just the backup machine. It's the No Distractions Editing Machine. I can shove all of my writing backups into it even though the HD is pretty small because they're writing files. I've got them all on a USB key drive that I think has 8 gb of space on it. I couldn't back up my photos on the USB key when I started using it, so I pulled them off to be sure of having space for writing stuff. Probably not a good idea to back up images or videos or music to this machine.

Way back in 2000, I didn't have a laptop. I had two desktops, both of them hand me down freebies. One was really old about ten or so, and a friend had loaded it with Linux, the other one much newer. They were side to side on a giant metal desk. My very young cat Ari, then a kitten, used to jump up onto the windowsill to swat both mice with his paws or occasionally his tail, opening new browser and application windows. He'd just gotten too large to type easily, his paws too big to strike just one key at a time. So he discovered mousing and we had fun.

When the Mac arrived on Saturday, now 13 year old big hairy cat Ari got up on my lap with keen excitement sniffing at it and standing on his hind legs. He rubbed his face on it again and again, especially the right front corner. I wondered if this machine was dipped in catnip or he just remembered his cyberkitten youth, but he's very happy about it. Turns out that the previous owner's cats always face-marked the right front corner, so he was just commenting on the kitty message board. He likes them!

It worked out well separating different tasks to different computers. It didn't wear out the Linbox any faster using it next to the Windows PC and oddly enough, it outlived several Windows machines and lasted till I went through too many moves and gave it to a geek friend who used it as his work PC because he liked the Linux environment. It was still working when I last saw it. When the backup machine is also useful in its own way sitting next to the main one that rules. I feel so safe! Thank you, a big thank you to everyone who helped bring me back online!

My backup laptop just died a couple of days ago. This is the first time I've ever tried posting from my iPhone, so please bear with me. It's very difficult, small screen, poor eyesight and new software are tough instead of just typing like normal on a screen I can see.

My writing buddy Nonny, also on dreamwidth and livejournal, is doing a fundraiser online to get me a good used laptop. These are the urls to copy and paste: http://nonnycat.dreamwidth.com or http://nonnycat.livejournal.com - sorry these aren't links but I am fogged and can't remember how to do links.

Yes, I am that helpless without the third lobe of my brain. I'm used to being able to open another window and look things up, like how to code links or my offline list of passwords.

Please do not send money to me by PayPal, as SSI will see it and take it out of my check. You'd wind up just helping the government. Nonny is the organizer and treasurer. She will collect funds, buy the machine and send it to me. Anything over goal will go to other related things I can't afford, like a bigger USB drive or an external hard drive so I can consolidate all my backups, or a printer cartridge, that sort of thing. The stuff I would just do if I was paying a reasonable rent.

Right now I am in a bad situation. I pay about 80% of my income in rent and SSI cut my check about $100 to pay back money I got in 2011. This may lighten up again in 2014 but I am not sure of that. I need to talk to them about a work plan in order to try to become self supporting again. I also need to go back to a more primitive technology for business records. I thought $50 for a blank ledger book was too much when I moved in - but I might not have lost as much if I'd bought it and used it.

I am going to buy one as soon as I am ready to put a book out.

I'm going off topic, another symptom.

So far in one day Nonny raised $100 and it's going really well! I have great hopes. Someone offered a desktop, but that's sort of a last resort. I use a folding TV table as a desk, it's tiny and I don't have space in my room to get a bigger table even if I could pester the manager for one. I also had some wrist and hand trouble using a full size keyboard. I found out on my first laptop that I type better, faster and with less problems on a laptop keyboard and even adapted to a little net book keyboard easier.

I live on my laptop. That's where and how I write. I think and type about 100 words a minute and on days when the fog or pain is so thick I'm unintelligible, I can still type and make sense about a couple of pain levels better than if I tried to talk in person or on phone. I feel like I am suddenly both stupid and helpless, things I could do are out of reach and so are most of the ways I distract myself from pain. I hate the way that fibro makes me less capable as soon as there is an emergency. The shock knocked me over with a flare so big that I lost a day before I realized I could text Nonny.

Huge thanks to everyone who helps! Would someone who knows or remembers the code please put Nonny's links in a comment? Please pass this along too. If you are a Facebook friend who wondered if Nonny's post on my wall was real, it is. We've known each other offline for over a decade and she is my editor, the person who's getting my rough drafts into readable condition comparable to pro published. This is real, just as I got unlimited Internet I wound up with dead laptop.

Purr and thank you. Ari purrs at you too, he did lap leap while I typed this and helped in his own special feline way. He purred and head banged the phone.