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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Is it wrong not to always be glad?

First, let me dispense with the item I know you're all dying to hear from me about.

It was indeed a certain member of Congress's member in the twitpic. It was Anthony Weiner's wiener. How did I miss out on that? Life is so freaking unfair sometimes. I already have the book title in mind when I write the would be story about sexting shenanigans with an elected official. The Congressman Who "Loved" Me. I guess it will remain fiction, not memoir. Dang it.

My favorite part of Rep. Weiner's presser yesterday? The word women. Not woman. Women. Oh, Anthony we're such kindreds only you're much better hung than me.Seriously, though. I'm trying not to judge because well, I've been my own kind of dumbass, but for cliff's sake, you're thinking of running for King of NYC and you just married your own hot chick and hello, those are tweet photos not email. Way to hand the opposing political party a deflection from the fact that they're tearing apart all the good things a government does.

It's been a strange few days, but before I get to that, I want to thank the Patrons of The Arts who provide PayPal donations to this blog. Thank you so much for paying me to write, youse guys. Sometimes that's just the boost we need to keep the lights on and the vodka flowing. Special thanks to Susan and to my long-time reader and steady contributor to the cause whom I won't name but if that person wants me to mention them by name, I'll hope they'll let me know. You know who you are.

Also, I want to thank Lyra and her son M. for making and sending me this power bracelet which is seriously cool and has already drawn some great compliments. Thank you, Lyra. I love it and wear it all the time.



If I can remember where I stored my trumpet, we'll be playing Taps to honor my laptop which gave its final blue screen performance yesterday. After a few days of wheezing and intermittently shutting down, it finally died and took with it some edits that I'd neglected to email to myself. I'm to blame. The computer was sick and tired of being an accomplice to my crimes. The never finishing a manuscript, writing boring blog entries and conducting illicit online threeways with a man who likes to be tickled and his cousin The Biter.

Before the vintage laptop groaned and went dark, Doug googled the issue and found that this Gateway model had a motherboard flaw. How very typical, Sigmund Freud. Blame the mother.

That's it, I fussed. I'm wasting my time writing. This is a sign that I'm done. Finished. Through.

Doug came to the rescue, as always, using his succinct and direct manner. "That's bullshit and you know it."

But don't you think the loss of my edits on DDay when DDay figures prominently in the story is a sign that I should stop writing this story?

A disappointed head shake can say so much.

So for now I'm a computer nomad borrowing the desktop the kids share and Doug's rebuilt laptop when he's not using it to obsess over fantasy baseball stuff and Calculus demonstrations. I'm typing this post on Doug's work computer, but I don't want to use it very much because it belongs to the school and it feels wrong. As a practical matter, I understand if I type a swear word or chew gum while using this laptop, it will issue me a detention. What a drag, too, because I can't view any you know what and I definitely won't be able to tweet Rep. Weiner and I have a dumb phone, not a smart one. Mine only makes calls and sends texts and photos. Oh. Heh. Anyway...

This is all just another not so gentle reminder to back up your work, people. Everytime. Save and email to yourself every important document like it may be your last. If you're going to OCD, this would be a good thing to be compulsive about.


Do you back up your work everytime? What method(s) do you use?

36 comments:

  1. Oh Christ!

    I mean to back up my stuff regularly and I do back up sometimes, though not enough.

    I don't even have any good excuse not to. I have two computers which can actually talk to each other, so it's only a matter of a couple of minutes.

    So what stops me? Laziness? Partly, I suppose. But there's more to it than that. Some kind of neurotic superstition that even thinking about bolloxed hard drives (hard drive - now that reminds me of a certain congressman :-)) and demented motherboards may be enough to provoke misfortune.

    I could back up now but - what the hell - maybe I'll just go on living dangerously ...

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  2. Doug is right. Case closed. Carry on. You are part of our lives now. We are stuck with you. We love you. That is all.

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  3. A note about Weiner's wiener ... when we lived in Hollywood and I was doing photos of models ... there was gossip that certain male actors and models cheated. That is, they sewed 8" lengths of large diameter rope inside their pants. A ropey twist on the old joke, "is that a banana in your pocket or are you glad to see me?"

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  4. I couldn't believe I missed Weiner's weiner either.

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  5. I also email myself the stuff I wanna keep. If I had an extra dime I'd throw it your way Lisa. So for those who can, pitch in some $ so Lisa can get a new laptop to keep up on her writing. :)

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  6. The idea of losing my work keeps me up at night. It's seriously the only worldly possession (I actually typoed "wordly") I would mourn the loss of. Argh!

    And Weiner's wiener has been fodder for news up here in Canada too. Takes "dickhead" to a whole new level of meaning (and I'm implying the stupid, not the mean).
    B

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  7. Oh I backup every single document, photo, blog post and email. Because you never know. And, I would FREAK OUT if I lost any of it.

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  8. Welcome back! But, ugh. The computer crash. Been there. Lost two years worth of Finnish photos. Geek squad assures me they can get them if I ever remember to take the machine with me when I'm in the vicinity. I now back up to a stick...every now and then. No, pretty often. I think. Guess what I'm going to do right now.

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  9. Oh, I'm sorry to hear about the crash!

    As others have already mentioned, you're stuck with us :-).

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  10. Since the instant I saw Weiner's news conference yesterday, I've been waiting for your take on it. Thank you! Weiner's weiner was tweeted with Twitter.

    I love words.

    I e-mail every significant everything to myself at a separate e-mail account, and to my husband who keeps a file. I lost a little bit one time and that's all it took to make me paranoid.

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  11. Borrow the laptops for blogging and perhaps a pencil for the manuscript? Hell, I edit for a living and yes, we still use pencils. Nice ones.

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  12. I just have to make sure you seriously haven't heard of Dropbox. It's the only way. (I was gonna say the truth and the life, but I feel like I should stop short of that. Which I sort of did?) In college, I lost an entire book - which I've since rewritten, but not before blood was shed. (Not mine, no worries.) And I've done the whole external hard drive thing but dropbox is just so much easier!

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  14. The most frightening thing to me about the Weiner wiener issue is the fact he's one of those entrusted to make decisions on behalf of the rest of us. Hell - Handbasket.. here we come.

    I had a computer die a couple of years ago but did I learn my lesson? At least I have most of my artwork in cupboards, drawers, and portfolios.

    Nice bracelet :-)

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  15. I use Carbonite which automatically backs up every single thing and only costs $50 a year. Not that's an insurance that's giving me my money's worth.

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  16. The college age son had his laptop go belly up during finals. As a result he had to pull 2 all nighters to try to reconstruct 28 pages of lost work. He was ready to swear off computers forever (worked in a semi conductor mfg plant & saw all the toxic stuff it took to make them).

    I joked that he was "going Walden"... he asked if I was comparing him to Thoreau? & took it as a compliment.

    I've come to the following conclusions:
    • Shit happens.
    • Life is expensive.

    So no, I don't think the blue screen of death is an omen you should abandon writing.....
    it just means shit happens & life is expensive.

    I would think you can do a simple back up w a thumb drive thingy. Those are pretty cheap these days.

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  17. (Going to back up stuff as soon as I post this comment.)

    Knew you would have something good to say about Der Weiner; thank you.

    Keep on writing, Lisa. Although I don't leave comments very often, I read your blog almost every day.

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  18. If you're Pollyanna, it's wrong to not always be glad. :-)

    I feel ya on that laptop backup, since I just went through it last month, and continue to be plagued by a blinking screen on occasion. Yeesh. I always back up though, because I know if I don't and my shit ever gets lost, I'll be completely and utterly destroyed emotionally and curl into a little ball and I'll probably even stop making weiner jokes. Talk about no will to live . . .

    xo

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  19. Not the laptop!

    Okay, the bracelet is not doing it's job. I blame the kid. He's two now. It's time for him to step up to the freakin' plate already.

    How long has it been since you've written with a pen and paper? Okay, okay, silver lining...maybe where you were on the WIP, was exactly the place where you needed to slow down your thoughts and get it just so. Nothing like pen and paper to do that. (Get the disposable fountain pens at the office supply store though, and a good paper notebook. Otherwise your hand will cramp up and you can't have that. It's June! This is the month.

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  20. Weiner by name weiner by nature. At times like this I'm glad I'm less exposed (tee hee) to American news over here.

    Thanks for the reminder on backup. I'm shamefully neglectful of that.

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  21. So what kind of powers *do* you have now?

    Re: laptops. Want me to steal one from work? I'm sure we've got a few extra lying around.

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  22. My husband installed Humyo - it automatically backs everything up. I am really bad about remembering to back-up and my desk top has crashed about 5 times in the last 3 years.

    I am sick at heart that it was Weiner showing his junk. He was/is such a smart, capable guy - why do these guys (Clinton, Edwards. etc.)keep making the same stupid moves? Don't answer that - I do know. I just don't understand.

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  23. I do. The compulsion dates back to my days as a photographer, when our studio was broken into and I lost everything I had. The cameras were replaceable, but my computer and external hard drives -- and all the work on them -- were not. Shortly thereafter, the studio was lost as well.

    So yeah. I backup my work.

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  25. I learned my lesson the same way you did.

    My other laptop died a quiet death around Christmas, taking 30 pages or so of my SCREENPLAY.

    I had some pages printed out, along with random scribbles in 2 or 3 different notebooks. I had to start all over again. It taught me a very valuable lesson. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!

    My only comment on the Weiner Guy is to express horror over his request that one of his women email him a pic of her va-jay-jay. WHA?! Who does this?!

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  26. Ridiculously, I never back anything up. Not even my statements.

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  27. I'm with Bethany -- Dropbox all the way. For people like me who are lazy about backing up, this is the solution. I work on my files saved directly into Dropbox, and as long as there's an Internet connection, it will be backed up.

    I also email myself files and save copies on jump drives, but Dropbox is the easiest.

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  28. Yes, I'm not really good at backing up my stuff either. I've got nothing to add about Weiner (or his parts), but that is a big bummer about your computer. I don't definitely don't think you should interpret it as a sign, however.

    Thanks for the books recommendations. And please thank your daughter for me. I read The Graveyard Book last week and we will definitely be reading that one . . . in October, of course. I was thinking about Holes for my 12 year old class, but I will check out her other Sachar pick.

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  29. I store all mys stuff on Google Docs. Then I have a backup which is independent of my own shaky system >:)

    Cold As Heaven

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  30. I always tell myself I REALLY need to backup before I turn off my computer but I almost never do. What I need is to have my husband install an automatic backup program so he won't have to listen to me whine when I lose everything... again.

    Oh, and the "As a practical matter, I understand if I type a swear word or chew gum while using this laptop, it will issue me a detention." really killed me. It made me wonder what would happen if I expressed my opinions open and graphically on my husband's computer at work... (on a military base, inside a munitions dump...) I guess I could find out if I used HIS logon and then sat back with some popcorn to watch the show... Tempting, oh so tempting...

    BTW, "Hello" :)

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  31. damn, what is this going around?? just went through this hell, had saved some to email but DID NOT PRINT IT OUT TO SAVE A HARD COPY. so gone too.... sorry to hear this, lisa... xxx

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  32. Yep, I email myself every time I edit a file. I have two email accounts, so I mail it from one address to the other, so that if Gmail inexplicably goes down, Yahoo hopefully won't. (Yes, I'm just as paranoid as I sound.)

    And for those of you who don't feel you have a few dollars to send Lisa's way? I strongly suggest you hire her as an editor. Pretty much a win-win situation for everyone with that, I assure you...

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  33. I always save stuff I write in email, and lately, I've been using google docs, too, but I really need to back up my music library on my desktop at home.

    Maybe if you do a special laptop fund pay pal thingy, you'd actually feel worthy of deeming some of the donated dough to that.

    Love you.


    (Plus, dude, I just gotta write about slut shaming today, since I'm leaving it in everyone's comments. That's what's going on here with Weinerman.)

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  34. Aw, man! That stinks but I'm with Doug and Lyra. This only means your determination was feeling neglected. Certain things can't be canned, your voice being one of them. Gee thee some paper and a pen, quick. It's time to go the ol' fashioned way.

    I back up but not nearly as much as I should.

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  35. So much of my writing is on paper already, the rest on Google docs or one of a few Macs. The bf and I write screenplay notes on the abundant 3x5 cards he carries with him or on our iphones.

    Don't give up yet, Lisa. You're still breathing. You can't quite writing until you're dead, and then who will feed the Pussies for Peace?

    We NEED you. So suck it up, Buttercup.

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  36. A weiner's wiener. Now we all wait to see who's next on the docket of "no that's not mine, oh wait, yes it is"

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