My normal "bag full of cats" problems have been temporarily supplanted with an actual problem. The hard drive on my newish computer has completely given up the ghost after less than a year. Fortunately, I still have my old computer, so I'm not completely at a loss. The newer computer actually "fucking snuffed it" the night before I went into the hospital and almost drove me into a blind rage, so exasperation was one more factor in my ill-fated attempt to actually get some help.
The computer repair shop that pronounced on my machine was unable to retrieve any data from it; it's all poofed into the ether. I didn't have a whole lot of critical stuff on the hard drive, but I'm just sick over what I did lose. In an unprecedented example of thinking ahead, I believe that I uploaded almost all of my writing files into Google Drive, their cloud storage service.
However, I need to hang out with more gamers (as everyone in my personal life rolls their eyes when I bring up video games), but what really kills me is that I lost all of my video game saves, including my recent run through the Mass Effect series. I hadn't even gotten halfway through the first game in the trilogy. Worse than that, I'd made all these copious notes for my "perfect" run through of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I had complete character builds for all nine companions and a general framework on the order to progress through the game. It may sound like a stupid waste of time to many, but then people tend to see their own hobbies as worthwhile while the hobbies of others that they don't share are moronic. My point is that it involved a lot of time and effort on my part which is now lost forever, and I was looking forward to playing the game at the end of the year as a reward for continued good behavior in my personal habits.
However, I need to hang out with more gamers (as everyone in my personal life rolls their eyes when I bring up video games), but what really kills me is that I lost all of my video game saves, including my recent run through the Mass Effect series. I hadn't even gotten halfway through the first game in the trilogy. Worse than that, I'd made all these copious notes for my "perfect" run through of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I had complete character builds for all nine companions and a general framework on the order to progress through the game. It may sound like a stupid waste of time to many, but then people tend to see their own hobbies as worthwhile while the hobbies of others that they don't share are moronic. My point is that it involved a lot of time and effort on my part which is now lost forever, and I was looking forward to playing the game at the end of the year as a reward for continued good behavior in my personal habits.
I have decided to take my misfortune as a sign that maybe I need to put all video games aside for awhile so that I can focus my energies on all of the things in my life that need attending to. Gaming has sustained me through my lonely struggles to maintain my sobriety, but I'd already decided to purge my computers of all the old games I hadn't gotten around to finishing, in an effort to move forward and unburden myself of the past. I am forcing myself to embrace the truth that you can't hold onto happy memories (which for me in the instant case includes treasured video game moments) or the unresolved dramas of days gone by like insects in amber. They only clutter the present with dead weight.
In honor of my fallen game saves, I'll pay tribute to them with the following cartoon that would totally be me...if I were on the dating scene...and straight...and thin etc. etc. Anyway, I don't remember where I found it, so I can't properly attribute it. But some like-minded souls will get a dry chuckle.
Personal Roundup
I've been rocking it with my diet and budget all this past week with the exception of yesterday. I've gone to the gym every day since last Monday, but I kind of pigged out at home last night. In my defense, I got a lot of shit sorted yesterday, but my mood started to flag as the day wore on. I also had to use my credit card to buy my groceries for the coming week (and the Mexican takeout I decided I couldn't live without), so I was unable to make it completely through the pay cycle without adding to my debt.
One of the things I've been working on is editing and organitzing my writing, hopefully in anticipation of pursuing that aggressively. I edited one of my poems the other day and was particularly proud of how it turned out. I sent it to three of my closest friends, but none of them replied to tell me how wonderful it was, which is somewhat inauspicious. Regardless, right now I need to focus on actually writing and worry over my anxieties of never getting published later.
