Oof. Sorry for the lack of posts lately...I've been keeling over pretty much every night. I also think I may have jinxed myself--during a meeting with the postgrad advisor this week (at which point, among other things, we decided to apply for a medical suspension of my registration), after going through all the various health problems, etc., etc., I said, "Yeah, it's getting pretty farcical. Patrick and I are just waiting for the house to catch on fire or something." So. The next day: (1) we found out that the reason we still hadn't heard back (after a month of waiting) on a major medical test was that the referral letter had never gotten to the clinic from the doctor's office, so it'll be at least another month before it happens; and (2) my laptop had a nervous breakdown. Not the same problem as before--this time, it could find the hard drive just fine, but the whole screen went berserk, every single time I tried to start it, and still continues to. Each time I try, streaky lines erupt everywhere, then the whole screen shakes, and finally (sooner or later, but inexorably) the computer crashes.

Foo.

I'm now debating whether to pay the local Mac people £102 (!!!!!!!) just to take a look at it, or whether to put the money towards saving for a new laptop. No answers yet. Sigh.

Until that happened, though, the novel had been going really well, at about 2-4 pages a day, which is what I need to feel happy and settled in it. I'm hoping to get back into that groove this weekend, and force myself into learning how to handwrite fiction again next week. (It's harder than it sounds to shift between modes of writing--I've gone through cycles of preferring either handwriting or typing, but for the past few months, I've been solidly in typing mode.)

And last night we watched "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which had my favorite film soundtrack in a long time and was just enormously fun. Particularly the first 30 minutes were completely magical. Much happiness.

Now Evanescence is playing on the stereo, and it's time for a nice Saturday breakfast of home-baked (well, in the bread machine) raisin bread and a latte. Yum.