Well none of my secret vacation wishes came true. The hot stone massage was awesome but I’ve been able to form new memories since then… /sigh Overall it was a good trip. Got lots of writing in (but didn’t finish the novel) and finished reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Bloodsucking Fiends both of which were excellent reads. Did not get the kayaks into the water (lots of misting and rain and overcast-ness) but did get some kick-ass eats. Then Saturday was the annual pig roast at the ‘rents’ house - - another successful one.
Pics to come shortly…
…right after we get Malkovich back in action.
Return from vacation to find that Malkovich decides to tank again. So soon.
AppleCare’s diagnosis? BAD HARD DRIVE.
So, like last time…:
Had Malkovich shut down for the days we were on vacation. Get home, fire it up. Log in. Let everything come up. Plug in the camera to start downloading the pics from our trip. Fire up mail. Mailboxes sync up. Go to click a message from my mom and - - EVERYTHING FREEZES. (My best guess is her email had a heavy attachment - - I think it was the video she’d showed me Saturday night.) Cmd+Option+Esc can’t Force Quit any of the apps. I can move windows around but can’t quite. Nothing responds. Refer back to last time’s troubleshooting steps…
- …hangs on the grey Apple screen…
- won’t Cmd+S into Single User
- unplug all peripherals, go down to the snow-white keyboard and mouse
- still won’t Cmd+S (just hangs on the grey screen)
- drop in the X.4 installer DVD; “C” reboot
- Disk Utility doesn’t even see the hard drive; “C” reboot
- System Profiler doesn’t even see the hard drive; “C” reboot
- the X.4 Installer doesn’t see the hard drive as a volume to install onto…
- 1-800-APL-CARE
- walk through what we did already…
- Zap PRAM? No. Do it now - - make any difference? No.
- Reboot w/ “Option” held down. What do you see? The hard drive, the installer DVD, and some utility to check the system. Click the hard drive and the arrow.
- Grey screen. No “spinning wheel”. (At least we saw the hard drive, right?)
- “C” reboot
- Try Disk Utility. Nothing.
“C” reboot.- “Option” reboot again.
- This time run the hardware check utility. Here’s your case number. Call us back w/ your findings…
- ERROR CODE 2STF/8/3: S-ATA Bus 0 - Master
- Call back; give case number; review. Need the error code? No, that’s OK.
- Diagnosis: bad hard drive, we’ll send out a new one post-haste.
Hooray for prompt service and sharp technical support. Boo for a bad hard drive. Fortunately I have (most) everything backed up to an external drive. So most data are not lost. Most. Hopefully not as catastrophic in the “loss” department as the last time I had to “start fresh” with that computer. But all of the sudden the litany of items that might not have gotten back up are singing their dirges in the back of my mind.
High School classroom but it looks more like one from a TV sitcom and not an actually really real H.S. classroom. It’s test day - - or at least some kind of pop quiz. The fierce tension in the room suggests an exam though. Something folks know about, have been studying for, and still don’t feel ready for. I get there late (don’t know why) and take a seat up front, taking my copy of the test. I won’t be penalized for being late but I don’t get additional time to complete the exam. I dive in but the instructions are poorly written. I can’t make anything out for the hand writing and the questions full of misspelled words and sentence fragments crammed in worse than Beat literature. I can’t even start the test. None of it makes sense. PENCILS DOWN! - - the teacher shouts. He looks Indian and the first thing I think on seeing him is “Vish” but he’s too nerdy and reminds me of this stat prof I had. “You didn’t even start?” I’ve crumpled it up but resisted the urge to throw it. I look him dead in the eye and explain that Why would - - no - - How could I even start? Teacher points out that everyone else has finished. No one else appears to have had any problems. I throw my doubts into the ring. I point out the flaws. The errors. The omissions. How was I supposed to know to circle the answer and then write in a few sentences of explanation? The instructions don’t even read left-to-right. I get resistance from him. Like this is obviously a failing on my part. No one else had problems making out the instructions. How could he possibly be wrong?
Fast moving cars. A rally race up a mountain road. Childish tension and cliched suspense. Everything is vaguely cartoonish and very G.I. Joe. The mountain looks like every comic book rendition of the Matterhorn. Of course, I’m behind the wheel of my ‘96 Plymouth Neon and (of all things) I’m out-performing my league ranking and even the Vegas odds against me. Holy shit! Go me! But the roads are getting steeper and steeper as the race wears on. Some of the inclines get so steep that the racers have to jump out of their cars and push them the rest of the way like little kids pushing their bikes up the remainder of an equally steep hill. Something about the Neon however is very nimble and I don’t need to do this. Until that last hill. The one that goes straight up. As in ninety degrees. As in vertical. Straight up to the top. I take a pit stop for fuel (which I need anyway) and check out that incline to determine my strategy. Rock hand-holds for scambling. Pulleys to help with lifting the cars. All very freakish and hard core. G.I. Joe’s Roadblock (of all characters) tells me that I’d be wise to cut my losses here. I don’t trust him, mostly because he’s clearly plastic and a little too shiny. He tells me that Even if I get the Neon up to the top there’d be no getting it back down. I go for it anyway. Fuck him and the pulleys. I take the Neon under my arm and start scrambling up those hand-holds, all the while the snow starting to come down.
We’re in a town to meet up with Adam and Sue. (The details of this trip are not apparent and probably no relevant.) The town is reminiscent of the ones that run up and down the highways of central Pennsylvania - - the towns for which terms like “rest stop” and “gas station” and “diner” are equivalent to “local economic backbone”. These are the towns known for lunch pit stops on long trips. A & I meet up with Adam & Sue in an otherwise deserted parking lot. The sky is gray - - not twilight but not quite overcast - - like the sky had gone to some atmospheric necropsy. We’re all hungry and we all agree to get eats. It’s lunchtime, right? Maybe early dinner. Sue suggests a place that is supposed to be a good local diner - - something other than a chainganged franchise. She doesn’t mention how she knows this place or where the tip came from. She didn’t grow up around here and it’s obvious that she has no known logical reason to make this suggestion. But we all take it on faith anyway, pile back into the cars, and go looking for this diner. Unfortunately, when we arrive, the address turns out to hold a motel - - there’s no diner in sight. Adam makes a remark about how now (all of the sudden) he remembers that the diner got shut down last year after a series of mass murders. (Or were they mass suicides?) And now a motel stands there? We check in. I help Sue with their bags and Adam does to bring in the dog (Sheena?) but notices a “No Pets” sign complete with dog silhouette red-encircled with the prohibitive slash. “Don’t you hate that?” he laughs. “Actually… No, I don’t.”
I am cheating on A. We’re somewhere in the U.S. but we’re definitely not home. We’re out on a business trip but it’s not clear whose business trip. (Am I the guest on hers? Or is she the guest on mine?) The affair is with someone familiar but I can’t place who - - the name and face are not an exact match and there’s little (if any) other qualifying context(s). And every night on this trip, it’s me committing the adultery. Every illicit detail is mine to savor. Every night of this trip. And A is suspicious. I can’t figure out how or why she is suspicious. I’ve taken every precaution. There’s no way she could know, right? And then it hits me - - she knows that I’m unfaithful because I’ve been using her body to do it.
