A lot of my older deviations may be revised with this weekend with improved JPGs. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while, and my current window of opportunity is about to close.

I can't find the relevant journal entry. Does anyone remember that laptop I wrote about? The one that I chose very specifically not to steal from work? By making sure it got re-entered into the inventory database even while it's lived (under an approved arrangement) at my home?

I got told today that they want it back, ASAP. He seemed annoyed about it. I told my story of having "done the right thing" (quickly, in about three sentences), and he didn't seem to give a damn. The whole issue was just an annoyance to him, and I was the cause.

In the same short meeting, he told me specifically not to browse DA at the office. I said, "sure thing," but of course he still seemed annoyed. I suppose I blame him less for that, a) not knowing what the "deviant" might mean, and b) we're not supposed to browse "personally" at work. (Though, of course, everyone does.)

So WHACK, that's a lot of transition to absorb. Though my DA during the day has been minimal (at least, for ages now), losing the laptop is a huge deal.

For those that don't know, Mac OS 9 was the last "classic" version of their OS, and Mac OS X is UNIX. In other words, night and day.

I do all my Photoshop and such on a 1996 300mHz Power Macintosh, running two monitors, both SCSI and IDE drives, and 3/4 gig of RAM. But because it's so old, it can only run OS9, which hasn't been so bad since I had access to X elsewhere...

That is, on the iBook from work. Small, underpowered, but perfect for the occasional OS X utility, occasional minor research in CS 2 (which won't run in 9 of course), and offloading all my internet activity off the tower, onto a handier little platform for typing and browsing.

All afternoon, it's been sinking in, one frustration at a time...

No more Safari. No more Firefox.

No more iTunes. No more burning CDs.

No more CS 2 for resizing my jpg's so much better.

No OmniOutliner that I've been writing my book in. (It's been massively outlined.)

And, of course, no more keeping "old creaky" at least dedicated solely to my art, as it's been for years now.

And other little benefits besides.

...

The irony is that I have a plan, in which I would have offered them the iBook back in about six weeks.

But I am under this huge stress in my life that the plan is going to fall through.

It seems alarmingly possible, "alarmingly" considering how long it's felt like my only hope.

And suddenly, today, my current "what-if-it-craps-out?" got feeling a lot more oppressive.

And I was stressed to the core already.

By the devil of my worst possible enemy, the bane of my existence, the hell toward which I am pathologically averse.

Paperwork.

And bureaucracy.

Why does it seem that any potential for hope...?

Has to require my version of Kryptonite?