I got up with the baby at 5am on Sunday, eager to get to work on the last two chapters of Crow before my daughter woke up.
I made a fresh pot of coffee and turned Scarlet on.
At this point, my son started to squeal - or I should say, his new form of communication is more akin to high-pitched squeal/screaming and it's so loud you can hear him all the way on the first floor of my apartment building. Coffee cup in hand, I rush to pick him up so he'll stop before he wakes his sister up (and everyone else in the building, because it's 5am on a Sunday and most people are still sleeping).
I sit down on my couch and the baby decides he wants my coffee cup - proceeding to grab the handle and try to yank it from my hands. In order to keep scalding hot coffee from spilling all over my child, I hold firm to the cup and try to pry his little fingers off. Instead, he suddenly lets go and the piping hot coffee flies backwards and lands all over the keyboard of my laptop.
Shit. Holy fucking shit.
I unplugged the laptop, took out the battery and dried it off as best I could. The display flicked off within seconds of the coffee spill and I'm thinking, "Fucking hell, I've barely had this computer for a month and they've already destroyed it. I can't afford to replace it again. I'm so screwed."
I cleaned it off to the best of my ability and propped it up to dry in front of a fan for the next 36 hours.
I then proceed to stress-clean my entire apartment in the next two days. Once again, as soon as I start feeling like I'm attaining a modicum of success, about to finish the first draft of a book and meet my deadline, and my children find a way to sabotage me. I'm scrubbing out bottles and thinking, "Maybe I'm not meant to write a book. Maybe this is the universe's way of stopping me. Maybe my book will destroy the world and there is a vast conspiracy to thwart me."
Yeah - I want to scream, and cry and bash my face into a wall. I feel like I'm losing my mind.
Yesterday evening, I finally got up the courage to turn the machine back on. It booted up and took me to the login screen.
"This is great! Maybe it's not as bad as I thought!"
The desktop loads a black screen and a spinning mouse icon.
I spent all of last night backing up files, then did a System Restore - nothing. I plugged it in to the tv monitor we use for my husband's gaming PC to check the display - also nothing. I tried various resets and tips I found online - still no luck.
On a fluke, I logged in the Guest User and THERE WAS THE DESKTOP! WHOOOOHOOOO!!!!
It turns out there was some sort of corruption to the user account when it crashed. I deleted the user and made a new one. Issue resolved. Computer working.
Whew! Dodged a bullet.
Now I have to spend my morning re-installing programs and replacing files. I didn't get my book finished by the end of the month, but that's okay. The computer isn't an over-sized paperweight like the last one. That's good enough for me. I'm still only two chapters away from finishing the first draft. Once I get Scarlet working properly I'm going back to work.
Round One: Reckless Whirlwind Toddler is the Winner.
Round Two: Scarlet withstands the beating and stands as Champion.
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