I’ve been sanding at a faster rate than I’ve been replenishing.
I stop to play with an eyebrow kit because it’s new, and because I am almost as obsessed with my eyebrows as I am with my lips. I throw away the toothbrush I ruined scrubbing the eye pencil sharpener. Then I toss the business card for the esthetician at the dermatologist’s office, but only because her number is already programmed into my phone.
When I am done cleaning and culling, the drawer is organized into tidy compartments. I reward myself with the remaining fudge and admire my work. There is a container for everyday items: contact lenses, deodorant, makeup (like mascara) that’s not pretty enough for the sink-side crystal tray. Another container holds sixteen shades of eye shadow. Yet another is home to a modest thirteen tubes of lipstick and gloss. (Don’t worry, there are more throughout the house.) One final container holds resurfacing crystals and a micro-chemical peel. Floating free in the drawer are four more toothbrushes in case I need to tame an especially errant brow or clean all that waxy black eyeliner film from around the sink drain.
The coffee is cold, the fudge is gone, and my red lip shaped mark on the mug is the most glamorous residue of my task. I swipe a bit of ruby gloss over my crimson-stained lips. For the moment my world is in order. Which is a good thing, because my husband is back, eyeing me in the mirror.
This could get messy.
I Am the Wirus
F
EW THINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT TO A WRITER THAN A functional computer. Slow start-up, programs that close unexpectedly, and digital minions who save your words to a drive you’ve never heard of can cause any of us to channel our inner Hemingway. And I’m talking about his efficiency with liquor, not words. For bloggers, lack of a working gateway proves even more disastrous. We live to surf websites for opportunities, never knowing where we’ll earn a quarter to write about our sock matching technique or a buck for our words about little Johnny’s first bicuspid.
“Maybe it’s not a virus,” I told my husband. “Maybe it’s Spyware.” I liked pretending I knew what I was talking about.
“Spyware, huh?”
“Spies are everywhere,” I said, looking around like a character in a cold war novel. I shrugged it off. “There must be something they can do right? I mean, don’t you think they can fix it?”
“How can you get rid of it if it’s spying on you?”
Smartass.
When I reached out for help, the men of a certain anti-virus protection outfit were only too happy to chat me up.
Ramesh: Welcome to the Antivirus Solution Center. How may I help you?
Lela: I have a problem with my web access. I think I have a virus, or spyware.
Ramesh: What is your 32-digit product number?
32-digit product number? This is exactly why I had put off contacting the virus people for over a month. If I had the kind of mind that could commit a 32-digit number to memory, I probably could have taken the computer apart and excised the electronic gremlin myself.
It took me a week to convince the chat guys that I had a legitimate problem, and it only happened then because during an online scan, the viral beast interrupted the scan. I was immediately upgraded from the chat service to a phone consult.
“Sounds like you have a wirus,” my new helper announced.
Did he say walrus? “Pardon me?”
“I think you have a wirus.”
Wirus? “No,” I said. “My wireless is working fine.”
“Not wireless, wi-rus.” He sounded irritated.
Wirus, rirus… virus! “Yes, yes, I have a virus!”
May as well have been a walrus, because it was goo goo g’joobing all over my computer.
He transferred my case to the virus department, which he said would be in contact within forty-eight hours. Silly me, I thought the whole company was the virus department. I fought back bitterness. What’s two more days when you’ve been dealing with an evil infection for over a month? If only hard drives
I stop to play with an eyebrow kit because it’s new, and because I am almost as obsessed with my eyebrows as I am with my lips. I throw away the toothbrush I ruined scrubbing the eye pencil sharpener. Then I toss the business card for the esthetician at the dermatologist’s office, but only because her number is already programmed into my phone.
When I am done cleaning and culling, the drawer is organized into tidy compartments. I reward myself with the remaining fudge and admire my work. There is a container for everyday items: contact lenses, deodorant, makeup (like mascara) that’s not pretty enough for the sink-side crystal tray. Another container holds sixteen shades of eye shadow. Yet another is home to a modest thirteen tubes of lipstick and gloss. (Don’t worry, there are more throughout the house.) One final container holds resurfacing crystals and a micro-chemical peel. Floating free in the drawer are four more toothbrushes in case I need to tame an especially errant brow or clean all that waxy black eyeliner film from around the sink drain.
The coffee is cold, the fudge is gone, and my red lip shaped mark on the mug is the most glamorous residue of my task. I swipe a bit of ruby gloss over my crimson-stained lips. For the moment my world is in order. Which is a good thing, because my husband is back, eyeing me in the mirror.
This could get messy.
I Am the Wirus
F
EW THINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT TO A WRITER THAN A functional computer. Slow start-up, programs that close unexpectedly, and digital minions who save your words to a drive you’ve never heard of can cause any of us to channel our inner Hemingway. And I’m talking about his efficiency with liquor, not words. For bloggers, lack of a working gateway proves even more disastrous. We live to surf websites for opportunities, never knowing where we’ll earn a quarter to write about our sock matching technique or a buck for our words about little Johnny’s first bicuspid.
“Maybe it’s not a virus,” I told my husband. “Maybe it’s Spyware.” I liked pretending I knew what I was talking about.
“Spyware, huh?”
“Spies are everywhere,” I said, looking around like a character in a cold war novel. I shrugged it off. “There must be something they can do right? I mean, don’t you think they can fix it?”
“How can you get rid of it if it’s spying on you?”
Smartass.
When I reached out for help, the men of a certain anti-virus protection outfit were only too happy to chat me up.
Ramesh: Welcome to the Antivirus Solution Center. How may I help you?
Lela: I have a problem with my web access. I think I have a virus, or spyware.
Ramesh: What is your 32-digit product number?
32-digit product number? This is exactly why I had put off contacting the virus people for over a month. If I had the kind of mind that could commit a 32-digit number to memory, I probably could have taken the computer apart and excised the electronic gremlin myself.
It took me a week to convince the chat guys that I had a legitimate problem, and it only happened then because during an online scan, the viral beast interrupted the scan. I was immediately upgraded from the chat service to a phone consult.
“Sounds like you have a wirus,” my new helper announced.
Did he say walrus? “Pardon me?”
“I think you have a wirus.”
Wirus? “No,” I said. “My wireless is working fine.”
“Not wireless, wi-rus.” He sounded irritated.
Wirus, rirus… virus! “Yes, yes, I have a virus!”
May as well have been a walrus, because it was goo goo g’joobing all over my computer.
He transferred my case to the virus department, which he said would be in contact within forty-eight hours. Silly me, I thought the whole company was the virus department. I fought back bitterness. What’s two more days when you’ve been dealing with an evil infection for over a month? If only hard drives