When I moved from LA to Seattle, I got a second-hand iPod from a friend who had upgraded. It made my life a happier place.

A couple weeks ago, my former coworker/dear friend Heidi mailed me her old laptop. “It’s a piece of shit,” she warned me. “It doesn’t boot up and the mouse driver is all fucked. It’s old and doesn’t have much memory.”

I was prepared.

Once received, I watched as TC tinkered with it, installed a new BIOS, reinstalled Windows, and got things all cleaned up and tidy. Then I ordered a CD -ROM drive for it. Then I went and picked up a wireless card.

And now my uphill battle against not spending too much time on a computer has intensified. I am losing the battle. Repeat: I am losing the battle.

My first computer was a laptop, but that was a different era, long before color screens or wifi. I’ve had desktops since 1998. Now I can write from anywhere, surf from anywhere, and work on my book — FROM ANYWHERE! It has made my life a happier place.

*twitch*

Oh, and speaking of Twitch, last night I watched Holes. There’s a character in it named “Twitch” and when he came on screen, I pointed and screamed “OH MY GOD, IT’S TOTALLY THE KID FROM SPELLBOUND!” It wasn’t. But it made my life a happier place to say it was.