So yesterday morning after breakfast, there was a major upswing.

Patrick and I decided to go for broke, and--get this--just buy me a new laptop.

Okay, maybe the gravity of this isn't hitting you. See, I have never in my life bought a new computer. I have never owned a new computer. Every single one of them has been several years old and well-used. And they've been great, honestly. I've always told myself there wasn't even a point to buying new computers, much like new cars. (Also, coincidentally, in the category of "I can't afford them anyway".)

But now that we've done it...well...It turns out I am really, really psyched about having an all-new computer. :) It's a 12" G4 iBook, and its name is Campion. I am very, very happy.

The only glitch in my happiness is that when I turned Campion on for the first time last night and the automatic set-up process began, it asked "Do you have a Mac already?", I said yes; "Do you want to transfer all of your files over?" "Heck, yes!"; "Connect the two computers with a dual-ended firewire cord" "Huh?"....

Oh dear. Of course, I don't own a dual-ended firewire cord. Fooie. And the Apple store is closed on Sundays.

I shut Campion back down (hoping I'd be able to restart the whole set-up process), and now can't turn it back on until tomorrow night after work. (I'm going to race out to the Apple store before work, of course. No time to lose!)

I really, really can't wait. It's driving me crazy to have cute little Campion sitting blinking up at me from its spot in the living room, wondering why I would buy it and then not use it...! :)

In other good news, it turns out stories of mine have gotten mentioned nicely in two "Year's End" summaries by Rich Horton: Stitching Time in his sum-up of The Fortean Bureau, and Inside the Tower in his sum-up of Strange Horizons. It's a really nice note to end the writing year on.

Now maybe I'll go try to do some more of that writing thang (even though my bad brain wants to say "I can't write until my new computer gets going!"--but it's lying). Happy Sunday!