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Laptop

After many, many months of procrastination, I finally factory reset my laptop. This was a very needed action, as the poor thing had been on its last legs for years. Covered in a layer of general cruft, and taking ages to boot up or really do anything, I kind of suspected it was busted for good. But no, turns out a factory reset has solved all the problems except its poor battery life - which I'm not too bothered about, because I intend to simply use it in bed. Having now positioned one of those white power-stick things so I can charge my laptop and my phone at the same time, I have transformed my bed into the ultimate pleasure chamber. I hope my ancestors are smiling upon me for this.

This laptop is seriously old. I've had it for at least 6, maybe 7 years. It's an Asus Zenbook and was what got me through university. It somehow survived endless bus trips, being carried around campus, and being used for hours upon hours in depressive spirals. The keyboard is flat and low-lying, giving typing a deeply satisfying feeling. The laptop itself is quite large, with the only inconvenience being the touchpad; the clickers aren't separate buttons and can be a little finicky. It has never been named, and never will be.

I wrote truly colossal amounts of fanfiction on this laptop. While I have sequestered large amounts of it into a zip file and taken it off the web, I have written around 300,000 words of fic over my lifetime. I don't really write it anymore, though. I think I got all the stories I had out, and there's not much left. I'm okay with that, though.

I've also given up on that one aspiration that almost everyone has: writing a book. I don't have a book inside me, and that's okay! It would be much worse if I tried really hard to write a book, and I made some doodoo, and tried to sell it. There's already plenty enough doodoo in the world. In fact, there's way too much stuff in general. Instead of adding to the pile, I'm going to enrich myself on what already exists, and then selectively contribute where I think it would actually matter - or where contributing doesn't contribute to our global hoarding situation. That's part of the reason why I enjoy making websites. Obviously there is a cost to them - physical storage of data, electricity, infrastructure - but the total impact is utterly negligable, so I never have to feel bad about hurting the planet. There's no pile of crap left over after you give up on a website.