Day 3: I'm a PC

cardiomachine: 20 mins bike, 15 mins elliptical
(read James Simpson's OXFORD ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY)
stretching: yes
pushups: 20
crunches: 30
breakfast: a pear, baguette, carrot juice, vitamins
lunch: chicken pot pie (see below)
apartment clean: yes

Excuses, excuses. Okay, maybe I'm using the computer failure thing as an excuse to procrastinate on my dissertation work and the whole thing is pretty flagrant. But I am very particular, and have always been, about my work environment: everything must be just so. Working on my wife's Mac is not just so; it is just so frustrating. There doesn't seem to be any organizing logic behind all of these pretty bubbles, bells and whistles. Even the keyboard is different. And I swear that the space bar is sticking, ever so slightly, since I uh, spilled a little bit (only a little bit!) of carrot juice on the keyboard (on a PC, I could easily pry off the space bar, wipe it off, and reattach). Plus, it takes time to be on the phone with Dell Technical Support, to get to FedEx or the computer store (with no car), and so forth -- about half of my work day for the past few days, actually.

None of this really explains why I spent a good hour and a half today making a chicken pot pie. But who knew that it would be as easy as making chicken in a pot, and putting it in a pie crust, and then baking? It came out exactly as I'd hoped, the chicken slighly overdone (better to err on the side of dry than of salmonella), but the black eyed peas, parsnip, carrots, onions, white wine/cheese sauce, and crust were all right where I wanted them. I've been doing an Eric Cartman voice since then.

And I made it to FedEx, which was farther away than I remembered, and the laptop is now sent. I've resigned myself to the probability that no data will be saved. But I have hope.